Dimensions
by Eledhwen
Summary: At the end of 'I Will Remember You', the Oracles' reply to Angel means life-changing events. Xover with BtVS. Reviews appreciated!
1. Shanshu

Spoilers: all in Dimension A. BtVS Season 4 and Angel Season 1.  
  
Couples: B/A, B/R by default in Dimension A  
  
Disclaimer: No, they're not mine. It's a pity, but there it is. They all belong to Joss Whedon. Sob.  
  
Author's note: This is my take on the Buffy-gets-pregnant / Buffy-remembers themes. The story is split into two dimensions. Dimension A is 'our' world, the Buffyverse of Joss, taken to the death of Professor Walsh in BtVS Season 4. Dimension B is the world where the Oracles refused to turn Angel back. It should be fairly clear which is which!  
  
  
  
DIMENSIONS: chapter 1 - Shanshu  
  
A:  
  
"I'll never forget. I'll never forget. I'll never forget. I'll never forget."  
  
And time was rolled back, the miracle was undone. One remembered and one forgot, her promises never said.  
  
B:  
  
Angel staggered backwards in the flash of light that ejected him brusquely from the Oracles' presence, rubbing his eyes. He was not sure whether to laugh or to cry. That was it. No more demon. No more curse. No more brooding in the dark. He was free.  
  
He climbed out into the early morning light and blinked as he glanced up. His second morning alive, the second of the rest of his life. Really, he thought, as he crossed the road and started towards his building, keeping by habit in the shadows, the whole thing felt strange. Felt unbelievable. At any minute the spell would break, the witch would cackle an evil laugh, and he would find himself back in the night – or worse. How could a body dead for two and a half centuries suddenly work again? How could someone who he had left, who he had injured mentally and physically, whose friends he had tortured and killed, agree to take him back and start again?  
  
Angel felt his brand-new heartbeat speed up as he thought of Buffy, and the day before which they had spent together in such bliss, such ecstasy. A perfect day. Surely he would not be granted any others? Automatically he drew out his keys and opened the door to the building, and went inside and up the familiar stairs, remembering as he climbed the words of the female Oracle, "This is your reward. You deserve this. And if anyone's angry at us not doing what you ask, they'll have me to deal with. Go back to your Slayer."  
  
His Slayer was sitting in his apartment, curled up on the sofa, idly flicking through a book on demonology. She was not really reading it, the pages turning too quickly, her eyes vacant, and as Angel came down the stairs she dropped it on the couch and stood up.  
  
"Where've you been? What happened?"  
  
He took her hands and pressed them to him, their eyes meeting. He looked down at her, amazed as always at the colour of those blue-green eyes and the love in them.  
  
"I went to see the Oracles. I asked them to turn me back."  
  
The violence with which she tore her hands away and swung around so her back was facing him shocked Angel.  
  
"Why?" The single word was full of controlled violence.  
  
"Because more than ever I know how much I love you." Buffy turned, slowly, and Angel held up a hand to stop her words. "Don't say anything, not just yet. Yesterday was … was extraordinary. It was the best day I've ever had. And it wasn't because I was given life again. It was because I was with you." He paused, and took a deep breath. "When we were fighting the Mohra I realised that I'm a liability to you. I fight with you and you'll take risks to protect me."  
  
"So you went to ask for superpowers again?" Buffy stared at him, shaking her head slowly. "Entirely unselfishly, of course."  
  
"No." Angel twisted his hands together. "No, I admit. Last night I knew that there are some things I will miss."  
  
"When are they doing it?" Her voice was resigned to the obvious. The dream would end.  
  
"Never."  
  
There was silence in the apartment, save for the humming of the fridge in the background. Buffy took one tentative step forwards, and then froze again.  
  
"What did you say?"  
  
"Never. They refused."  
  
"They refused. They what?"  
  
"It was meant. It was all meant to happen. We've been manipulated again. This is … this is my reward. I'm human, Buffy, and I'm staying this way." Buffy's eyes filled with seagreen tears, but she smiled warmly as she met his eyes. Angel held out his hand, and she moved forwards and took it, putting the other arm around his neck as they moved irresistibly into a kiss, warm lips meeting warm lips.  
  
"So what happens now?"  
  
Buffy was tracing an idle pattern on Angel's chest, leaning comfortably against his shoulder. He squinted sideways down at her.  
  
"Mmmm?"  
  
"What happens now?" She sat up properly, clutching the bedclothes around her. "You're alive. We could spend weeks like this …"  
  
"But we can't."  
  
"No." She frowned. "Why can't we?"  
  
Angel smiled at her fondly. "Because you have your duty, and college, and friends waiting for you, and I … I suppose I have to tell Cordy and Doyle that it's all over."  
  
"No more Angel Investigations." Buffy twirled a strand of hair around her fingers. "Come to Sunnydale?"  
  
Angel was silent, and he stared into space. Sunnydale, source of so many good and bad memories.  
  
"I don't know," he said eventually. "I don't know where I fit anymore."  
  
Buffy looked at him and flicked her eyes downwards suggestively.  
  
"With me," she replied, and bent over to kiss him.  
  
They got up for lunch, and Angel made Buffy an omelette with the eggs he found Cordelia had bought, and they shared it and followed it by ice-cream. Afterwards Buffy sat and watched him wash up, her chin leaning on her hand.  
  
Angel dried his hands and turned to the fridge, opening it and staring at the bags of blood which were still stacked in the corner.  
  
"I suppose I can throw these away," he said, picking one up and tossing it from hand to hand. "Extraordinary."  
  
"Don't bother," Buffy said. "We'll take them to Spike." Angel looked at her in astonishment. "Oh, of course, I forgot you didn't know." She gave him the story of Spike-with-a-chip-in-his-head and Angel threw back his head and laughed aloud.  
  
"I would love to see Spike feeding from a plastic bag," he got out, finally. "The Powers have a sense of ironic humour after all. That serves him right for the insults he gave me."  
  
"You can see him, if you come to Sunnydale," Buffy played her trump card, and Angel nodded, resigned, and closed the fridge door.  
  
"All right."  
  
"But first," she said, standing up and stretching languorously, "or rather this evening, I promised I'd have dinner with my dad if I was still around. I want him to meet you."  
  
Angel started protesting.  
  
A:  
  
Willow sat down on her bed and watched Buffy unpack the small bag she'd taken to Los Angeles.  
  
"How'd it go?" she asked, deciding to be straight.  
  
"Dad is fine," Buffy replied, hanging up a flowery dress she hadn't worn and wasn't sure why she'd taken.  
  
"And … I mean …" hesitated Willow.  
  
"And Angel and I are going to forget each other," her friend said, closing the wardrobe door and dropping a handful of stakes into his trunk. Her face crumpled and she sank down on to her bed. "Oh, God, Willow, I can't bear it. How can I forget him?"  
  
Willow got up and went to put her arm around the distraught Slayer.  
  
"Sssshh," she comforted. "Sssshhh. It'll all be okay."  
  
B:  
  
"You look gorgeous. Stop glancing in the mirror."  
  
Angel glanced sideways at Buffy. "Sorry. I can't get used to having a reflection. Give me a chance. And anyway I'm nervous."  
  
"Dad will love you. I love you."  
  
"I love you too." Angel swung the car into a space and turned off the ignition. "Here we are. I'm starving again. Are you sure I look all right?"  
  
Buffy took his arm and reached up to kiss his cheek. "Stop worrying. That's an order."  
  
Hank Summers was already sitting at a table in the restaurant, a bottle of wine open in front of him, tapping his fingers on the edge of the tablecloth whilst he waited for his daughter. He saw her enter, summery and pretty in pink, and stood up to welcome her – and then unconsciously his eyes opened wide as he took in her companion; tall, dark, dressed simply in a white shirt and black trousers and jacket, following Buffy slowly across the restaurant.  
  
"Dad!" Buffy flew into his arms and kissed him on the cheek.  
  
"Hi, honey. Love the dress."  
  
"Thanks." She turned and held out her hand to her companion. "Stop being nervous. Dad, this is Angel. Angel, Dad."  
  
"Pleased to meet you, Mr Summers," Angel said, shaking hands with the other man.  
  
"And I you, I think. Shall we sit down?" Angel pulled Buffy's chair out for her and she flashed him a smile as she sat down, the warmth of which was not lost on her father. "When you said you were bringing a friend I kind of expected it to be that school friend, Buffy."  
  
"Sorry." Buffy looked unrepentant despite her words. "Cordelia's busy."  
  
"So." Hank reached for the wine and poured it out, red and glistening, and then put the bottle down again and rested his elbows on the tablecloth. "How do you know my daughter, Angel … should I call you Angel?"  
  
"Please do. I, erm, I lived in Sunnydale for a while. Before moving here."  
  
"And what do you do?"  
  
Angel glanced sideways at Buffy and back at her father.  
  
"I'm a … I have a sort of investigative agency. Sort people's problems out for them."  
  
"A private detective?"  
  
"Of a kind."  
  
There was a pause whilst the waiter came and passed them all menus, took drinks orders and disappeared again.  
  
"Which doesn't explain how you two met."  
  
"We bumped into each other. I knocked him over," Buffy said brightly, flashing a smile at Angel. Angel looked down at his menu, concentrating on the words to banish the memories of that night, so far away now – the night he had first felt her, smelt her, spoken to her, begun the long lie and the spiral which would lead to Hell and back.  
  
"Knocked him over?" Hank Summers asked, rousing Angel from his thoughts. "Have you two both decided what you want to eat?"  
  
"Chicken and then ice cream," Buffy said. "No, I really did knock him over."  
  
"She sent me flying," Angel added, forcing himself to be cheerful. After all, he had no reason not to be, he reflected. "I think I'll have … actually, I've no idea what I want to eat." He peered at the menu again, and looked hopelessly at Buffy.  
  
"Mr Indecisive," she teased. The waiter arrived and looked attentive.  
  
"One chicken," said Buffy's father, "one, erm, sea bass, with salad, and …"  
  
"Lamb?" said Angel eventually. The waiter noted everything down, took the menus back and faded away again.  
  
"So, tell me about college," Hank said, and Buffy was off on a carefully edited account of the University of Sunnydale, leaving Angel to watch her in peace. Halfway through her stories of psychology classes, sharing a room with Willow, parties and clubs, the food came, and they settled to eating. Angel found he had forgotten what lamb tasted like, and the miniature cobs of corn were completely new. He drank some of the red wine Hank Summers had chosen, and that did bring back memories. Memories of endless dinner parties when he was young in Ireland, dinner parties to which his despairing parents had invited eligible young ladies in the hope of him proposing to one of them. Memories too of other dinner parties, where the guests were the dinner and the wine was there to grease the wheels of the evening, to help blur the survivors' minds so that afterwards they would not connect the death of Lady So-and-so with the delightful party they had spent in the company of Angelus.  
  
"Earth calling Angel!" Buffy's voice brought him back to the present. "You okay?" she checked, laying her hand on top of his.  
  
"Yes. Yes, I'm fine." He reassured her with a smile and turned his hand to squeeze hers. "Just … my mind wandered."  
  
"You are not to start brooding again," she told him firmly. "Okay? Brooding over."  
  
"Brooding over," Angel agreed. "Sorry."  
  
"Good." Buffy picked up her napkin and wiped her mouth with a contented sigh. "That was yummy. Now if you two will excuse me …" She got up and disappeared in the direction of the Ladies. Hank put down his knife and fork and met Angel's eyes frankly.  
  
"There's a lot between you two neither of you are saying," he said. Angel put down his own cutlery neatly, and tried to think of an appropriate response. "Are you in love with my daughter?" asked Hank, before he could.  
  
Angel fiddled with the stem of his wine glass, and nodded.  
  
"I have been since I first saw her."  
  
"And is she in love with you?"  
  
"I don't know. I'd like to think so … it's complicated."  
  
"Love is always complicated," said Hank with a wry smile. "As you'll find when you're older, I dare say. Although, having said that … you're older than Buffy, aren't you?"  
  
"Yes." Angel thought he'd better not mention how much older.  
  
"It's been tough on her, these last few years," Hank said, half to himself. "What with our divorce, and the move to Sunnydale and so on. It didn't really surprise me when she said she was staying there for college. It's best for her to be near her mother. Have you met Joyce?"  
  
"I have," answered Angel, an image of Buffy's mother flicking into his mind. Earnest eyes meeting his, eyes full of concern for a daughter; and fear too, fear that a nightmare would be resurrected.  
  
Hank sighed. "We were two strong characters and we both wanted our own way. I guess it was never destined to last. But I don't regret the marriage – "  
  
"Because of Buffy," Angel finished for him. "She's an extraordinary young woman, Mr Summers. Unique. And if there's one thing I really want, it's to be with her." He turned his head to watch Buffy come back across the restaurant. "Forever."  
  
She sat down with a smile that embraced them both. "Had a good discussion of me?" Angel opened his mouth to contradict her, but Buffy laid a finger across his lips. "You're both looking as guilty as hell. Can we have pudding?"  
  
They finished the meal chattering idly about small matters; Buffy's father demonstrating an ironic sense of humour which only made Angel like him more. He had always thought that the Slayer took after her mother, but now he saw that the jibes she threw at victims and her keen, if underused, skill at planning things came from Hank Summers. Angel was careful to remain guarded about what he said about himself. Indeed, he was still not sure what the future held for him. As always his position was unique, a first in the history of the world. Nobody could advise him, nobody could offer counsel based on prior experience. He watched Buffy's animated face and reflected that following his heart was undoubtedly best.  
  
A:  
  
"You're a strange girl," said Riley Finn, looking appreciatively at the slight girl in front of him. She smiled back, and they set off across the campus together. Buffy felt like she was setting out on a new path, a path into a world where she would forget the past. Surely this tall, blonde, solidly American TA was the complete antithesis to a certain dark vampire still lurking in the shadows of her mind? She put Angel firmly to the back of her thoughts and started thinking about Riley Finn instead.  
  
B:  
  
Buffy held on to her father's arm with her left, and Angel's with her right, and the three of them thus linked strolled along the dark street.  
  
"This is perfect," she sighed happily. "Isn't it perfect?"  
  
"It is," Angel agreed. "Utterly."  
  
Hank glanced over his daughter's head at the dark young man who was gazing down at Buffy with clear adoration and wondered about him and their relationship, and was just going to ask the pair a question when Buffy broke the link, staring intently ahead of her.  
  
"See something?" Angel asked, trying to see into the darkness ahead and failing.  
  
"Against the wall five hundred metres down the street," said Buffy, opening her small evening bag and feeling in it. "Hope we're not too late."  
  
"What's going on?" Hank asked, as Buffy threw her bag at Angel and set off in a sprint. Angel turned to the other man, clutching the pink bag in one hand.  
  
"She'll explain later. We'll explain later." He tossed Hank Summers the bag and set off after Buffy.  
  
By the time he reached the Slayer she had separated the two figures next to the wall of an apartment building and was landing a rain of blows and kicks at one of them. The other was collapsed on the floor, and Angel, realising Buffy had the situation well under control, went to this one first.  
  
"Hey." He lifted the girl and got her into a sitting position, putting his handkerchief against the gaping wounds on her neck. She was scarcely conscious, and pressing the material hard to stop the bleeding Angel pulled out his phone with his other hand and dialled 911. Hank arrived as he was putting the phone away again, and the girl was fluttering her eyelids and trying to say something. "Don't talk," Angel said. "You're all right. An ambulance is on its way. You've lost a lot of blood but you'll live."  
  
Hank bent down to him.  
  
"Is she okay? What happened?"  
  
"She … she was …" Angel looked past Hank at Buffy, who had the hapless vampire pinned against the wall, her arm raised to stake it.  
  
"Buffy?" said Hank, confusion and puzzlement supreme on his face. "What the …?"  
  
The Slayer plunged the stake into the vampire's chest and it disappeared in a cloud of dust. Buffy turned, brushing off her dress.  
  
"She okay?" she asked Angel.  
  
"She's alive. And she'll stay that way. How are you?"  
  
"Bruised," said Buffy rubbing her arm. "Be all right tomorrow. You see, I can do this without worrying about you."  
  
"Erm …" began her father, and Buffy switched her attention from Angel to him. "Erm," Hank repeated. "Did that … man … did he just turn into dust?"  
  
The sound of sirens saved the Slayer for a few minutes, as the ambulance arrived and they sent the girl off in it. There was silence on the pavement, Buffy facing her father with her arms crossed protectively over her front.  
  
"I'm … I'm the Slayer, dad," she said.  
  
Nobody said anything. Hank looked from Buffy to Angel and back again.  
  
"That was a vampire," Angel explained, deciding to help her out. "Buffy is …"  
  
"I kill vampires," Buffy continued. "And demons and monsters and things. It's what I do. It's what I am."  
  
"You're my daughter," Hank said faintly. "You're eighteen years old. And … that man disappeared."  
  
"It was a vampire," Buffy repeated. "The girl was bitten, but she'll be fine."  
  
"Why … how …" Hank started, and Buffy came to him and hugged him.  
  
"You're taking this better than Mom," she said. "Let's go back to Angel's place and we'll … explain. We'll try and explain."  
  
"We?" said Hank, turning to Angel. "You know about this too?"  
  
The journey to Angel's apartment took only a few minutes, and once there they sat Hank down. Buffy settled next to him on the couch and held his hand. Hank looked around with interest.  
  
"Nice place," he commented, trying to seem light-hearted. "I like the paintings."  
  
"Thank you." Angel fiddled with his fingers.  
  
"Did you find them all in antiques shops?" asked Hank. "I mean, it's an impressive collection."  
  
Angel glanced around at the pictures, and took a deep breath that three nights ago would have been unnecessary.  
  
"It's only half the collection I used to have," he said. "Some of them I … bought … from the artists, some from other collectors."  
  
"And the books," said Hank, looking down at the low table by his side upon which lay a copy of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal alongside Redford's Demon Compendium. "An unusual selection."  
  
"The Baudelaire's a first edition." Angel met Buffy's eyes, and nodded at her. "No, Buffy, he has to know. In any rate your mother could tell him. This goes with the Slayer stuff."  
  
"What goes with the Slayer stuff?" asked Hank. "Buffy?"  
  
"I first saw Buffy the day she was told of her destiny for the first time," Angel said, standing up and pacing the room. "I was peering out of a car looking at the sun for the first time in over two centuries, trying not to get burnt. But I was. By her. I followed her to Sunnydale, and helped her to fight, followed her and watched her and fell in love. But there was so much between us, so many differences … I left and came here."  
  
"Differences?" questioned Hank. "What differences?"  
  
"A difference in age," Angel said, summoning all his courage. "Of some two hundred and twenty years. And, when I first met her, a difference … a difference in … species, I suppose you might say. But it's all changed, everything's … I'm human, now." He sat down again. "I'm alive. Until three nights ago I wasn't, I was … I was a vampire like that one Buffy dusted tonight."  
  
Hank stared at Angel and then turned his stare on Buffy.  
  
"It's all true," Buffy said. "Ask Mom."  
  
"Joyce knows about all this too … I mean you told her all this …?"  
  
"Bit by bit. It began before we moved to Sunnydale, Dad. The fire in the gym at Hemery, that was all Slaying, and the late nights, it was all Slaying." She smiled a little smile. "And Angel was always the best and the worst of it."  
  
They exchanged looks, and Angel knew then that his hope would not be in vain. But Buffy's father shook his head, and stood up.  
  
"This is ridiculous. We've all drunk too much." He stopped pacing in front of a broadsword hanging shining above a mantelpiece, and stared at it perplexed. "It's … Buffy, sweetheart, you know everyone long forgave you for burning the high school gym down; you don't need excuses for it. You were going through a difficult period."  
  
"Yes, my Watcher had just died," Buffy pointed out. "There was a nest of twenty vamps in there."  
  
"And," Hank said, turning from the sword to Angel, "have you thought about … you know, psychiatry or something? I'm not sure that Buffy should be with …"  
  
Angel met the other man's eyes evenly.  
  
"Learning the truth about the world is always difficult to accept," he said, softly. "In my youth we believed so much more easily than nowadays; when girls in the village still thought leprechauns lived out on the moors and the fisherman tied charms to their boats to ward off the kelpies, and still it came as a shock for me, on the border between life and eternal death, to discover that the girl I'd followed was not human at all. Since then I've been a myth, a nightmare, something from horror movies, and the things I see each night still come as a surprise. Mr Summers, I swear to you that we're telling you the truth. Buffy is the Slayer, and … and she's the best there has been since before my memory. In my time two hundred Slayers have been called, and none of them did what she's already done for the world." He paused for a moment. "And if you still want proof, call Joyce. Or …" Angel took Hank's arm gently but firmly and steered him towards the kitchen, where he opened the fridge door and took out a bag of blood. "This will go to Sunnydale now I no longer need it."  
  
There was silence. Hank looked from the bag in Angel's hand to Angel and back again. From the doorway Buffy watched them, a lump inexplicably refusing to disappear from her throat. Angel replaced the blood and closed the door, and took the few steps across the room to her, where she put her arms around his waist and leant into his warm, solid chest, resting her head on his shoulder.  
  
"I'm … I'll call you in the morning, honey," Hank said, faintly, and went out, his footsteps slow on the stairs before the door at the top was closed.  
  
"I love you," Buffy said into Angel's jacket, her voice muffled. "I've tried not to, I've tried so hard, but I can't stop."  
  
"There's no reason to stop now," he replied, breathing in the scent of her hair. "There's no reason." 


	2. Back to Sunnydale

Disclaimer: see chapter 1  
  
DIMENSIONS: chapter 2 – Back to Sunnydale  
  
A:  
  
Buffy let the writing on the blackboard sweep over her, knowing that in any case Willow next to her was, as usual, taking clear and complete notes. Instead of listening to Professor Walsh on dual personality disorder, she was dreaming about the TA sitting attentively to one side of the podium; his gentle smile and his honest, open laugh. It was nice to hear a man laugh, she mused, especially in that generous, free way. Xander laughed, sure, but did Xander count as a man? And in any case Xander's laughs were always at least fifty percent sarcasm. Giles … Giles never laughed, only smiled. And Angel scarcely smiled, in Buffy's memory – and heaven knows she remembered so much; laughter was out for an ensouled vampire. Only the dreaded memory of Angelus held images of laughter and a lingering, lopsided smile full of charm and confidence and pure, undiluted evil.  
  
Buffy pushed that thought away as soon as it had surfaced and turned her attention back to Riley. He was the perfect antidote to dark souvenirs, the very epitome of America, and it appeared he liked her. So, Buffy decided, with a little smile of her own, why not give it a go? She switched back to the lecture.  
  
B:  
  
"I'm loving Angel instead!" sang Buffy at the top of her voice. "And through it all, wherever it may take me, I know that life won't break me, whether I'm right or wrong …"  
  
Angel laughed with her singing and the music blaring loud from the radio. They had the roof down on the black convertible, the sun shone high in the sky, and the miles to Sunnydale were disappearing fast. Behind his new sunglasses the world looked strange, new and glistening in the light. Driving this road at night had concealed from him the acres of dry fields burning in the harsh Californian sunshine, and it struck Angel just how far he had come since leaving the green rolling hillsides and the wild ocean of Ireland.  
  
"Dollar for your thoughts," Buffy said, breaking off her mad singing.  
  
"I thought it used to be a penny," Angel returned, overtaking a tractor. "I was just thinking how lucky I am. And, how hot it is."  
  
"I told you to wear a T-shirt," she said.  
  
"I don't own any T-shirts, not really," Angel pointed out. "I never had any need for them. Besides the fact that it's always colder at night, I just didn't feel heat. Or cold."  
  
"Then we'll go shopping and buy you a whole new colourful wardrobe," Buffy suggested happily. "I bet you'd look wonderful in red."  
  
"I wear red," Angel said.  
  
"Dark red," Buffy replied, "and it doesn't count." And she was off on a list of the clothes she thought he should get. Angel listened with half his mind, but the easy chatter of the Slayer next to him was good. It made him feel really, thoroughly, alive.  
  
They arrived in Sunnydale in mid-afternoon, and following Buffy's directions Angel drove first to the white house in Revello Drive, and parked outside it with a feeling of nervous anticipation, trailing a few metres behind her as she hurried to the door and opened it.  
  
"Mom!" Buffy called, dropping her bag in the hall. Angel closed the door behind him silently.  
  
"In the kitchen, honey," came Joyce Summers' reply, and taking hold of Angel's hand Buffy dragged him through. "What are you doing here?" Buffy's mother began, and broke off as she saw her daughter's companion. "Oh."  
  
"Joyce," said Angel, hesitantly.  
  
"Angel's human," Buffy threw in.  
  
Joyce put down the bowl of cake mix she was stirring with a Slayer's vigour, and stared at Buffy.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Mom, I come walking in with Angel at three in the afternoon and you don't think it's odd?"  
  
"I thought it was odd you came walking in with Angel, actually," said Joyce. Angel wanted desperately to fade out of the room and leave the two women to it, but Buffy still held his hand hard – slightly too strongly, as a matter of fact – and he was caught rabbit-like in the glare of a mother's eyes. "I thought you left her," the mother continued, accusingly.  
  
"I did. But … things happened. Like Buffy said, I'm human now."  
  
"He has a heartbeat and everything," Buffy added. "And the Oracles said it was permanent."  
  
"The whats?" Joyce sat down on a kitchen stool, shaking her head. "Buffy, sweetheart …"  
  
"Angel is human and Angel is staying," Buffy said, deadly serious now. "So you'll have to get used to it. You coped with the Slayer thing. This has to be easier."  
  
Joyce put her head in her hands.  
  
"I don't know. Given your relationship history, I'd venture no, Buffy. It's not going to be easier. But I know too you won't listen to a thing I say." She looked up at Angel. "I hope to God your information is correct, Angel, because whether my little girl is the Slayer or not, I don't want her hurt again."  
  
"Neither do I," he replied in a low voice. "Believe me, Buffy is everything to me, and I would give my life for her. But I was told that this was final, that no more obstacles really stand in our way."  
  
"Except mothers," said Joyce.  
  
They walked to Giles's, holding hands and strolling along. Angel remarked that the town felt completely different in the daylight, with the inhabitants out and about and enjoying themselves. No menace threatened the perfect, pretty streets, and he realised for the first time why people did stay on the Hellmouth with all its accompanying threats. In the sun the forecourt to Giles's apartment was pleasant, the fountain rippling a little tune to itself. Buffy beamed at him as she pushed open the door, but Angel could not smile. Despite the change, despite the heartbeat and the functioning lungs, he still remembered the night he had come here alone, forcing open the door with the weight of a dead body over his shoulders, and set up the accessories of a romantic evening – roses, wine, opera – to trap the gentle Watcher and rip open the hearts of all the little group. And he remembered too a more recent night when Giles was his only recourse from madness, and how Evil had haunted him in the form of Jenny Calendar. So now, entering the quiet apartment, Angel felt all the guilt he had supposedly been cleansed of weighing down on his shoulders once more.  
  
The living room was full when they went in, and someone was saying, "Well, if she doesn't come back soon then what can we do?" But the noise disappeared as Buffy pulled Angel inside. Giles took off his glasses, and with a loud clunk Xander dropped the book he was holding on the floor.  
  
"Look at that. If it ain't the great poof himself," said Spike, reclining in an armchair (to which his hands and legs were tied firmly).  
  
"Buffy," Giles said, standing up. "Erm, Angel."  
  
"Much less glowery," commented Anya from the sofa. "Like the sunshine look. Suits you."  
  
Xander held up a hand. "Might I be the only one to say, uh – daylight?"  
  
Buffy dragged a still-reluctant Angel to the chairs and started talking. At the end there was another long silence. Even Spike looked suitably impressed. After a minute Willow got up and hugged the Slayer, before turning to Angel and hugging him too. Then she blushed bright red and hurried back to her seat.  
  
Giles broke the silence eventually, putting his glasses back on and flicking through a book with one hand.  
  
"The, the Oracles," he began, "they are to be found in Los Angeles?"  
  
"Doyle knew where they were," Angel said. "They're under the Post Office. Whether they're in LA or not I don't know."  
  
"A – and they were a man and a woman?" checked Giles.  
  
"In kind of Greek dress," confirmed Angel. "Oh, and body paint. At any rate it looked like paint. Blue and gold."  
  
"Fascinating," murmured Giles, scribbling notes in the margin of the book. "Absolutely fascinating."  
  
A:  
  
Angel's fists thudded into the punching bag, denting it, cracking the leather with every rhythmical blow. Pale pink sweat poured off him, and his mind was a blur of memories and guilt and regret. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have possibly wanted to reverse the only thing he had ever wanted, to take it away from Buffy, to live with it himself?  
  
The skin on his knuckles was bruised and bloody but he didn't feel the pain through the mist of thoughts, nor hear the step of Doyle as he watched from the doorway, one hand in a pocket, pity and puzzlement mixed on his face. Tears blended with the sweat on Angel's face, and finally he stopped pounding the bag and fell on to it, hugging it as though it was the blonde girl he had lost; perhaps forever.  
  
B:  
  
They watched the couple go out, hands entwined, and the door shut.  
  
"Will someone please give me somethin' to eat!" Spike said. "You've been so bleedin' occupied with the great poof that you've clean forgotten me."  
  
"Shut up," Giles said.  
  
The others stared at each other, their minds all occupied with the revelation that had just swept them up. Willow had a little smile on her face, her romantic mind full of her friend's happiness. Xander was scowling and Anya was biting her nails and glaring at her boyfriend. Giles, flicking through books, still seemed a little dazed and preoccupied.  
  
"Does this mean I can't call him Deadboy any more?" asked Xander eventually. He turned to Spike. "Fancy a new nickname?"  
  
"Piss off. Call him Peaches from me. Bastard always got what he wanted. Never took any bloody care of his kids either. I'm hungry!"  
  
"Get him some blood, will you, Willow?" asked Giles wearily. "Anything to shut him up."  
  
Willow got up and went to the fridge, and whilst the microwave was humming leant on the counter. "Don't you think it's really romantic?" she said. "You know, that he was willing to lose his humanity for Buffy?" The microwave beeped and she retrieved the yellow mug of blood.  
  
"Sweet ain't the word I'd use," said Spike, sipping the blood. "Ta, Red. Selfish I'd call it." Four pairs of eyes turned to the vampire. "Look at it this way," he continued, "there's masses of stuff we can do that you poor creatures can't … live forever and so on. Good deal being a demon, I'd say. You reckon that there's not even a bit of Angelus that's not goin' to miss that?"  
  
"Hear hear," Anya cut in. "Well," she defended herself, in reply to Xander's look, "the eternal life part was pretty cool. Not to mention the inflicting nasty diseases on people. It was fun."  
  
"Vengeance girl's right," Spike agreed. "Fun is the word. Now he's tied to the Slayer's apron strings. Lucky sod. Not."  
  
A:  
  
"Buffy, Buffy, Buffy," Forrest moaned. "For Christ's sake, man, can't you think of something else?"  
  
Riley ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. "She's stuck inside," he said, gesturing vaguely. "You know, she's so … alive, so funny and there's something I can't make out and I just want to tell her how I feel and be honest and I can't."  
  
"Woah, slow down," his friend said. "Sentence structure disappearing is a sure sign of infatuation. Professor Walsh never tell you that?"  
  
Riley clicked back the slide on the gun he was cleaning and squinted down the barrel.  
  
"No," he replied, "she never did. But maybe it's true. Maybe it's true."  
  
B:  
  
Angel dropped his bag and looked around the gloom. He crossed to the wall and tried the light switch, and was rewarded by a twinkle from a dusty chandelier high up near the ceiling.  
  
The building had an air of neglect, dust filling every corner, but when he twitched aside the heavy dustsheet the sofa looked in good enough condition. Angel began to methodically fold the sheets up and pile them in a corner, before going to the tiny kitchen corner and switching on the fridge. Time enough to stock it up later. He picked up his bag again and, pushing aside thick velvet curtains, went through to the bedroom and the bare mattress on the big wooden bed. And then the memories swept over him as he stared. Lying in that bed feverish, delirious, promising Buffy he'd never leave her; Buffy talking about mirrors and drawers; dreams that woke him sweating in the middle of the day; blood-stained sticky sheets and the muddle of pale limbs and dark hair and large, dark, mad eyes; the background noise of wheels relentlessly rolling, matches being struck endlessly.  
  
He turned on his heel and left at a run.  
  
Buffy was unpacking when someone knocked on the door, and she called out an invitation to enter without a second thought.  
  
"Hey." She looked up. Riley. Oh god.  
  
"Riley," she said, hanging up her flowered sundress. "Hi." She kicked her bag of weapons a little further into the cupboard and closed the door firmly. "Hi."  
  
"You already said that," he smiled. He stood with one hand in his back pocket and one hand nervously massaging his shoulder. "You, erm, I, we noticed you weren't in class yesterday. You're not ill?"  
  
"Ill?" Buffy laughed. "No, I was … I went to see my dad in LA. For, Thanksgiving. You had a nice Thanksgiving?"  
  
"Yeah. Bit short. I had to get back," said Riley, and opened his mouth to continue when there was another knock on the door.  
  
"Come in," said Buffy.  
  
Angel closed the door behind him and leant on it.  
  
"I can't stay there," he panted out. "I can't, Buffy, there's …" He stopped talking.  
  
Riley looked at Angel. Angel looked at Riley. Then they both looked at Buffy and there was silence.  
  
"Um," said the Slayer. "Er. Riley, this is Angel, Angel, Riley Finn. He's the TA for my psych class."  
  
"TA?" Angel asked.  
  
"Teaching Assistant," clarified Riley. "Are you a student? I don't think I've seen you around before."  
  
Buffy moved in before they all got lost in tangled explanations. "Angel's an old friend who's just moving back into Sunnydale," she said, taking Riley's arm and moving him firmly out of the room. "Thanks for coming round, it's kinda nice to have someone looking after me," she went on. "See you around?"  
  
She closed the door, leaving Agent Riley Finn of Iowa perplexed and confused in the corridor.  
  
Inside the room Angel was sitting on Willow's bed holding his head in his hands.  
  
"I saw him when I was here the other day," he said, looking up as Buffy came back in. "You were smiling at him."  
  
"Oh, Angel." Buffy took his hand and sat down next to him. "He's … I thought I liked him, you know – someone to take me into the light? I've been trying to get over you. Riley's sweet and normal and a bit boring. He's not you. I like him. I love you." They kissed and then rested their heads against each other. "Why did you come?" Buffy asked eventually, moving away.  
  
"The mansion. I thought I'd be all right, but I can't stay there. You know I bought the place for Spike and Drusilla and myself after … after Giles burnt the old factory down; and I liked it then. It was old, it reminded me of the days back in Europe. And when I came back … after Acathla, it was big and safe and I didn't dare leave it because I didn't know what would be waiting for me in the darkness. But now – there are too many memories. I'm going to sell it again, buy something else. A flat with big windows looking out over the sunrise."  
  
She hugged him tight in her Slayer's arms.  
  
"Where are you going to stay until?" She waved her arm. "You can stay here, but there's Willow …"  
  
Angel smiled at her. "That's all right. I thought … do you think Giles would mind? I could help Spike-sitting. God knows I'm more used to him than anyone else."  
  
* * *  
  
"Erm," said Giles, a little later. "Erm, I, that is – I was going to ask Xander to take Spike for the weekend …"  
  
"Take me!" Spike exclaimed. "I'm not a bloody hamster, Rupe. I'm a vampire. I'm evil."  
  
"And chipped," pointed out Giles tersely. "You have very little choice in the matter, I'm afraid."  
  
"Now you're making me sound like that damned mug of yours," complained Spike.  
  
Angel nodded. "All right, I'll get a motel room. It's only until I have somewhere else."  
  
"The mansion …"  
  
"Too many memories," agreed Angel, for once meeting Giles's kind grey eyes. "May I ask …?"  
  
"I have a visitor," Giles said, turning to put a book back on the shelf as he spoke. "A female visitor." Angel stood frozen. Spike watched the pair of them with amusement. Giles straightened up and turned back round again. "Jenny … I haven't forgotten her," he told Angel gently. "I loved her. Olivia is someone I've known since Oxford. We're friends; she knows a little about … about Watching and so on. I'm f – fond of her, though love is perhaps not the right word." He propped his glasses up on a notepad on the desk. "Now, especially now, you have to stop blaming yourself for things the demon did, Angel."  
  
"But I can still remember," Angel said. "That's not going to change." He picked up his bag and escaped out of the door. Giles picked up the phone and dialled Xander's number, shaking his head sadly.  
  
Later that night, the town of Sunnydale slept. The Slayer had patrolled and slept now with her head pillowed on her arm, dreaming of Angel. A mile away he had finally dozed off and images of Buffy filled his sleeping head. Giles and Olivia lay in each other's arms. And with a wisp of departing air, the voices of Sunnydale were whisked away and closed in a small wooden box.  
  
Angel awoke with the dawn and got up to watch the sun rise from the window of his dingy little motel room. He washed, staring with the awe of a new day at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, and dressed for a summer's day. He picked up his keys and went out to get breakfast.  
  
As he drove into Sunnydale, intending to have a leisurely meal on waffles and coffee in the sunlight, Angel noticed a few people hurrying past with tear-streaked faces, and one couple gesturing wildly at each other without saying anything. The whole town seemed deathly silent, more silent than even the darkest hours of the night. He began to realise something was wrong. The coffee shop, normally packed from morning to night, was closed, and Angel walked away from the sign with only one thing on his mind. Get Buffy.  
  
He took the stairs in Stevenson Hall two at a time and arrived at the door of room 214 slightly breathless. Somebody ran past weeping silently, and he glanced round as the door opened.  
  
"Buffy," he started to say. At least his mouth opened to say the words, but no sound came out. Buffy stared at him, and he looked back at her tousled head and sleep-filled eyes before she put out a hand and pulled him into the room.  
  
Willow was sitting up in bed yawning, but she smiled when she saw Angel.  
  
"Hi, Angel," her mouth said, and then she too stopped. The three of them stared at each other hopelessly.  
  
They arrived at Giles's holding hands, the three of them in shock from the silent walk through the muted town. Buffy and Willow were wearing plastic message boards around their necks, and as Giles closed the door and hugged them both they took the boards off and laid them on a table. Angel's eyes had gone straight to the attractive woman leaning against the counter with a mug clutched in her hands, as always remembering times past.  
  
Buffy touched his arm and looked at him concernedly, and for a second their eyes met.  
  
You all right? hers said, as clear as if she had spoken the words, and he nodded and went to sit down on the sofa next to Anya. Xander banged urgently on the table to get everyone's attention and turned up the news.  
  
"An attack of laryngitis," the newsreader said, "has overcome the town of Sunnydale this morning. Reports say that the whole population is affected and the area is under quarantine. Sufferers should remain inside and rest."  
  
Buffy's eyebrows went up and she picked up her board and wrote furiously. Patrol. Tonight. And the group began researching.  
  
Innumerable cups of tea and piles of books later, Xander closed his latest dusty volume with a bang that startled them all. He raised his eyebrows and spread his hands out expressively. Giles sighed visibly and took off his glasses, closing his own book slowly.  
  
'Nothing?' he wrote on a piece of paper. Everyone shook their heads and one by one stood up, stretching and yawning. Buffy picked up her bag, ready to patrol, and kissed Angel goodbye with affection in her eyes. He held her hand and looked at her, asking her with his gaze will you be okay? She smiled back and answered with another gentle kiss. Of course, don't worry. I love you.  
  
A:  
  
Buffy had her hands in her pockets as she picked her way through the chaos on the main street. A water pipe was spurting into the air next to an abandoned car, and the few people out were all heading for the liquor store. Every night in Sunnydale meant something odd was up. The difference was, tonight everyone knew about it.  
  
Across the street she could see Riley Finn break up a silent argument with calm, authoritative gestures, and despite her worries Buffy's face broke into a smile. It was good to see him. She was starting to feel things when she saw him. With a decisive step she crossed the street and joined him, their lips meeting to say all the things they could not say in words.  
  
B:  
  
Angel could not sleep. His mind full of Buffy out patrolling the night with no recourse to sarcasm or screams kept him turning over and over in the hard motel bed. Finally he sat up and switched on the bedside lamp and reached for his book, trying to distract his mind. But the words were blurred and his brain refused to translate the French into English.  
  
He threw Germinal down with a curse and pushed the covers back, swinging his legs out of bed and standing up in a quick motion, before the dizziness in his head caught him and made him sit back down again. Slower, you idiot, he thought to himself. Human, remember? The thought made him laugh soundlessly. How could he have forgotten? He tried standing up again steadily, and walked across to the window to look out into the night that was now a strange and unknown domain. And jumped back in shock, twitching the curtain closed.  
  
An hour later he held the picture out at arm's length, satisfied, and fell into bed and was asleep in a few minutes.  
  
A and B:  
  
Giles looked at the paper in one hand, and the picture in the other, and muttered a silent curse to himself before hurrying across to the bookshelf and extracting his old, battered copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales.  
  
B:  
  
No. The determination in her eyes was firm. You're not coming with me.  
  
Angel raised his eyebrows and gestured. Why not?  
  
Buffy picked up the transparency and stared at the image of a bleeding heart on it, her back turned to him, before turning around again and waving the picture in his direction. Heart. Yours.  
  
Less likely if I'm with you, Angel tried to tell her. Buffy shook her head, and pointed at herself, miming staking something. Then she pointed at him and mimed a throat being cut. Angel decided to give in, and gathered her to him for a kiss. I won't lose you, he told her, willing the connection. I'm not going to lose you. 


	3. Conflict

Disclaimer: see chapter 1  
  
DIMENSIONS: chapter 3 - Conflict  
  
  
  
B:  
  
"It was weird, you know," Buffy said, running her hand down his cheek. "It was almost as if I could hear your voice in my head. Weird, but nice."  
  
Angel smiled at her, stroking her soft hair with his hand. "So you got that I love you?"  
  
"Oh, I got that." She kissed him gently. "I definitely got that."  
  
He moved slightly on the bed and returned the kiss more deeply, Buffy's hands wrapping themselves around his back as he slipped his under her top, going straight for the tricky bra clasp and …  
  
"Not now," Buffy groaned, sitting up and rolling Angel off her. "Who the hell is that?"  
  
Angel lay back on the bed, seething inside as he watched the Slayer pat her hair down, pull her top back into shape and go to the door.  
  
"Oh. Riley."  
  
The tall TA came inside the room and shut the door behind him. "We need to talk." He switched his gaze from Buffy to Angel sitting up on the bed. "Privately."  
  
"I have no secrets from Angel," Buffy told Riley firmly. "Especially when it comes to demons and things. And guys running around in commando outfits."  
  
Riley had the grace to blush red with embarrassment.  
  
"All right, so I'm in the military," he said candidly. "I'm paid to hunt these monsters down. You're not. At least, not that I've heard. But you're so fast, so strong, so agile. What are you? You are human?"  
  
"I'm the Slayer," Buffy said. There was a silence. Angel bit his lip to stop a burst of laughter breaking out at Riley's blank face. "The Slayer?" tried Buffy. "The Chosen One? One girl with the strength and the speed … you really haven't heard of me, have you?"  
  
"No." Riley rubbed his forehead. "No, you're Buffy Summers and you fall asleep in psych class."  
  
"She falls asleep because she's out all night killing demons," broke in Angel. "You're certainly the first demon hunter I've met who hasn't heard of the Slayer."  
  
Riley glared at Angel, who returned the glare with blank disinterest. Buffy sat down on her bed and took Angel's hand, playing idly with his claddagh ring.  
  
"I'm an agent of the US Army," said Riley proudly, "not a demon hunter."  
  
"You kill demons? Then you count as a demon hunter." Angel kept his voice purposefully neutral. Riley switched his glare to Buffy.  
  
"Okay, what's he doing here anyway? And why's he in the know? And what the hell is the Slayer?"  
  
Buffy sighed patiently. "I'm the Slayer, Riley. I told you that already. Angel's here and in the know because I trust him with my life. He was there when I was called. Basically I kill vamps and other things, because someone has to. I didn't choose this. It's my destiny. I'm as fast as them and as strong as most of them. I'm stronger than you."  
  
"You're just a girl."  
  
"Believe her," said Angel seriously. "Get on the wrong side of Buffy and it hurts." He got up. "Buffy, I'm going to go and find us some lunch. I'll be back in half an hour. I'll leave you to explain things to Mr Finn." He moved away, their fingers still entwined, and finally broke the contact and disappeared out of the door. Buffy sent a look after him and turned her attention back to Riley.  
  
"I don't understand." Riley sank down on Willow's neat bed. "I just don't understand."  
  
"Talk to one of your vamps, the ones you have captured," said Buffy.  
  
"Talk to one?"  
  
"They can talk, you know. They have personalities and everything. Some are annoying, some are mad, some are … charming and sarcastic and cruel." A shadow flickered across her face. "And names. What do you call them, the things you capture? Underworld … enemies?"  
  
"Hostile Sub-Terrestrials. They have names?" Riley thought about this. "How do you know they have names? Aren't you supposed to kill them?"  
  
Buffy shrugged. "Yeah, well, sometimes things don't go to plan. Some of them get away. And my guess is some of them that got away are probably with you. Go on. Ask them about the Slayer."  
  
There was silence in the room as Riley digested the new information and Buffy dreamed about a picnic lunch with Angel. Finally, Riley stood up and opened his mouth to speak. And promptly fell to his knees, as simultaneously Buffy grabbed the bedside table. The room was moving, rocking; things were falling off shelves. Buffy braced herself against the wall, gritting her teeth, her eyes closed, trying desperately not to think.  
  
The earthquake was over in a matter of seconds, and Riley picked himself up with a grin on his face, his anger gone in euphoria. He replaced a mug on Buffy's desk.  
  
"An earthquake! A real earthquake!"  
  
Buffy opened her eyes, gasping for breath, and stood up with her legs shaking. "Not again," she said. "Not again."  
  
"You get those often?"  
  
"Only when the world's about to end," Buffy replied, gathering up Mr Gordo and hugging him tightly.  
  
"A real earthquake!" Riley repeated, still smiling.  
  
"Riley, shut up!" Buffy said, her voice dangerously loud. "Just …"  
  
There was the sound of running footsteps outside the door and it burst open, Angel panting and flushed behind it.  
  
"Buffy. Buffy, are you okay?"  
  
She looked up from the stuffed pig and tears sprang into her eyes. "Angel. Oh God, Angel." He closed the door and came straight to her, enfolding her in his arms and letting her rest her head on his shoulder.  
  
"I thought straight away of the Master. There hasn't been an earthquake since then. But you're all right, aren't you?"  
  
"We have to tell Giles." Buffy detached her head from Angel's comforting shoulder and looked up at him. "Giles will know what to do. What's causing it. The Codex might have something. Or another book."  
  
"Or it might just be a normal quake," pointed out Angel. "You mustn't get worried."  
  
"I'm not … okay, I am worried. I don't want to die again. I'm scared."  
  
"Don't be. And remember I'm here now. I can help now. I'll be there for you."  
  
She smiled up at him, and with a finger Angel wiped the tears away from the corners of her sea-green eyes and kissed her softly.  
  
Riley coughed. "Sorry to interrupt, guys," he said tersely, disappointment and anger mixed in his voice. "But there's a few things in this I don't understand."  
  
"Still?" asked Angel, the questions of the boy starting to get on his mettle.  
  
"You, for a start," Riley said in return. "I've been here in Sunnydale four months now. I've known Buffy for three of them. And I had it on good authority from Willow that she was single."  
  
"She was."  
  
"I was." Buffy and Angel spoke together, and Angel glanced at her and indicated she should continue. "I was single. At least, I was trying to get over a break-up. It hurt, I was hurting, I needed someone around."  
  
"That's why you went with Parker."  
  
"Parker?" Angel looked at Buffy with wide dark eyes in which a glint of hurt shone.  
  
"You left me!" she protested. "Call it a rebound. But he didn't want me. You know, I woke up the morning after … and there was nobody there. Again."  
  
"Oh, Buffy." Guilt flashed on to Angel's face and he lowered his gaze. "I'm … I won't let that happen again."  
  
"It can't happen again," Buffy pointed out sensibly. "Look, Riley," she added, "I like you. You're, you know, nice? You were the perfect opposite of Angel – only a coupla years older than me, ordinary college guy, funny, cute smile, human …" There was silence in the room. Buffy went a furious shade of red and clapped her hand over her mouth.  
  
"Yes, I'm human," Riley said in a funny tone of voice, his hand near the walkie-talkie clipped unobtrusively to his belt.  
  
"Well, so'm I, and so's Angel, so that's all right," gabbled Buffy.  
  
"You just said …"  
  
"Slip of the tongue," she rushed on. "You know, I'm the Slayer, I spend lots of time round demons, normal that …"  
  
"That you should mistake your boyfriend for one?" Riley finished for her. "Very normal." He slipped his hand in his pocket and brought out a wooden crucifix on a chain. "Stand up."  
  
Angel let go of Buffy and met Riley's gaze evenly. "Have you thought about the time of day?" he asked, keeping his hands in full view of the other man. "That there's sunlight streaming into this room?"  
  
Riley faltered for a split second, but regained his composure and kept his hand holding the crucifix up in front of him. "Yes," he lied, and threw the cross.  
  
Angel put out his hand and caught it, clutching the wood tight in his fist and then opening his palm up.  
  
"See? Nothing. It's a nice piece of work, this," he continued, examining the cross. "Nineteenth century, I think. Rosewood and ebony … cost somebody a lot of money." He tossed it back across to Riley. "Family heirloom?"  
  
"My grandmother's." Riley seemed deflated as he tucked the cross back into his pocket. "How'd you know?"  
  
Angel turned and stared out of the window at the sunlit day, his features serious.  
  
"When you have something shoved in your face every night for a century or so you get to know stuff like that," he said. Buffy made a noise of protestation, but Angel shushed her with a quick shake of his head. "Xander or Willow or Anya will probably blurt it out anyway," he told her. "He's in your business, whether you like it or not. He knows you're the Slayer. And if he takes your very sensible advice and talks to some of the vampires he's caught, he'll hear about me soon enough."  
  
"Hear what about you?" Riley had sat down on Willow's bed again and was twisting his fingers together.  
  
"When you're having a relationship with the Slayer the underworld gets to know," Angel said, facing him. "Especially when you're a member of the underworld, however reluctantly. And more so when a reputation precedes you. Go and talk to them."  
  
Riley looked up, fingers still twisted together. "But I've never tried to talk to an HST," he said. "Nobody has. An HST is an animal. A monster."  
  
"Most of them are dumb," Buffy said. "Have to be, to get themselves killed. Most of the vamps that do the turning are dumb too. But not all of them." She shot Angel a look. "And in any case any vamp and most of the demons can talk." She stood up. "Now I'm thinking I need to talk to Giles about this quake. Coming, Angel?"  
  
"Of course. I should ring Cordelia and Doyle and see if they have anything. Doyle might have had a vision."  
  
"This is your cue to go," Buffy pointed out to Riley bluntly. "I'll see you around."  
  
"Yeah." Riley stood up, still obviously confused. "Look, I hope it's not necessary to say …"  
  
"Won't say a word," Buffy reassured him. "And you too I hope." Riley shook his head and moved out of the room slowly and thoughtfully. Buffy sighed deeply and picked up her hairbrush. "I thought he'd never go," she said, pulling it through the blonde tangles. "And I'd given him a pretty high rating on the I'm-not-daft factor. Was I wrong?"  
  
"He was just confused." Angel took the brush from her and started to run it through her hair. "He's been trained to regard demons as unintelligent killing machines. To be told they can talk and have names – well, it's a bit like being told the Alsatian at the police station talks. I suppose. I never really thought about it before, except from the other side." He put the brush down. "Come on, let's go and see Giles, stop worrying about Mr Finn –"  
  
"- And start worrying about the end of the world," said Buffy sadly.  
  
A:  
  
Riley watched Buffy turn and walk off with a pang in his heart. He didn't understand her, couldn't make out what this slight blonde tornado with a heart of gold and a spirit of fire had been through, or why she was beginning to mean so much to him. At once a mythical hero and a pretty college girl who fell asleep in class – was it possible?  
  
The buzzing of his walkie-talkie alerted him to the Initiative, and he unclipped it and turned in the opposite direction, but not without a backwards glance in the direction in which the Slayer had disappeared.  
  
B:  
  
Riley walked down the line of cages watching the demons pace. For the first time he noticed that the HSTs were all behaving differently – individually. Some of them sat mournfully in a corner, head down; some of them slept uneasily; many of them were pacing up and down the small rooms. Two or three of the vampires glared at him from behind yellow eyes as he went up the row, and finally Riley stopped and faced one of them.  
  
It was the first time he had looked at a vampire in the light for more than a few seconds, and after a minute's gazing he realised that in the golden eyes there was more than simple evil. Something else – complicated, he thought; dislike of him and also a certain small amount of intelligence.  
  
"Do you know the Slayer?" he asked, eventually, feeling silly and hoping nobody disturbed him.  
  
The vampire snorted in derision, mouth turned down at the corners and teeth bared.  
  
"Course I know the Slayer. Know of the Slayer. Know she's here, if I'm even still in Sunnydale. Am I?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Still in Sunnydale. Idiot."  
  
"You're in captivity," Riley said, trying to keep his dignity. "What can you tell me about the Slayer?"  
  
"She's a girl. Blonde. Somebody said she was pretty. Eatable." The vampire grinned and then to Riley's astonishment the ugly, distorted features faded into human. A plain, honest-looking face, brown hair and blue eyes. "Think my brother was at high school with her."  
  
"And her name?"  
  
"Why the hell should I know that? Though I do know something else … maybe it'd interest you? Enough to get me something safe to eat for once?"  
  
"Perhaps."  
  
The vampire considered Riley's face. "Hmm. I think you're lying. But I guess I'm gonna get nowhere fast by not telling you. You and your little soldier pals would bag a big prize if you went after her boyfriend."  
  
"Why?" Riley's heart speeded up. Was this the information the strange Angel had hinted of?  
  
"Goes by the name of Angelus, or Angel these days. Heard he'd gone soft. Used to be a big shot in Europe in the nineteenth century."  
  
"What's a big shot mean in your terms?"  
  
"You know nothing, do you, soldier boy? What I heard is that Angelus was in line to be the next big Master before he went soft, if he went soft. Not the guy to get on the wrong side of."  
  
There was a shout from across the corridor.  
  
"You know nothing except what people have told you, Boxer!" Riley turned around to see a tall yet stocky green demon leaning on the wall of his cage. "Hey, human. Yeah, you. You want info? I met Angelus. And he was more bothered about killing the Slayer then than …"  
  
Riley cut in before the demon could offer more details. "You met him? When?"  
  
"Coupla years ago. Before you bastards moved in on the territory. Things used to be simple, ya know? There was us and there was the Slayer, and if you kept out of her way you kept alive. And if you listened to Angelus or one of his mates. You try and capture Angelus and you're in for trouble, human. He'll take your pretty little head off as soon as look at you, and enjoy every second of it. My advice. Don't bother."  
  
The demon bared its teeth at Riley in what he supposed was meant to be a grin. Riley looked back for a moment and then turned and beat a hasty retreat to the sound of several multi-toned demon laughs.  
  
* * *  
  
"Are you Bronzing tonight?" asked Willow hopefully, sitting down next to Buffy in the cafeteria. "Me, you, Xander? Remember?"  
  
"What?" Buffy sprang out of her reverie. "Of course. While Angel's in LA I might as well. Just hope that Professor Walsh doesn't want me for a mission or anything."  
  
Willow smiled, but it was a weak smile. She had still not reconciled the idea of Riley Finn (erstwhile boyfriend-possible and now simple colleague) with the strange soldiers, and her friend's involvement with them worried her. The only light on the horizon in regards to Buffy, as far as Willow was concerned, was the fact that Angel was about to sign the deeds to a house and was going to settle in Sunnydale. She had never forgotten the feeling of pure terror as Angelus clutched her neck in the darkness of the high school hallway, but neither had she forgotten the times Angel had saved her life, or his fevered professions of love as he lay dying. When Angel was there, Buffy was happy, and as far as Willow was concerned that was all that mattered. With a little private smile she thought of Tara and spells and reflected that for the moment everything seemed to be perfect. Long may it last.  
  
It lasted very little time. They met in the Bronze that evening as promised, but half an hour into the night Buffy's brand-new beeper buzzed at her and she disappeared with promises of meeting the next day.  
  
Riley met her in Lowell House with an air of distraction. Buffy reflected that he had been distracted for a while. The warm friendship between them had been spoilt, and she thought that Angel was probably the cause. Throughout the briefing and once on patrol he was cool and professional, and soon Buffy got annoyed.  
  
"What's the matter?" she asked eventually, fed up with seeing no prey. Riley glanced at her, one hand on his pistol.  
  
"Nothing's the matter."  
  
"No, you're … I don't know what, but you're something."  
  
"I'm on patrol," Riley reminded her.  
  
Buffy looked around. "There's nothing here."  
  
"But there might be."  
  
"So? If this demon turns up we'll get it."  
  
"I don't have supernatural senses," Riley objected. They fell into an awkward silence.  
  
The demon took them all by surprise except for Buffy, who spin-kicked the thing before the soldiers had a chance to react, followed by a launch into a rain of punches and high-kicks. Three of Riley's men went down injured before their taser blasts felled the thing, and Buffy and he stood back panting whilst the uninjured men bound the demon's arms and legs and carried it off.  
  
A:  
  
They fell into each other's arms with desperation and longing, the kisses almost unbroken by breathing, their skin hot and sticky from the fight. Riley's fingers trembled as he searched for the tie at the back of her top, and Buffy moaned gently in pleasure as he slipped it off her and ran awed hands over her perfect body. Caught in passion and desire, they fell into the soft pillows and came together, the moment made more precious by its newness for both of them, more intense because they were together. And unseen in the corner of the room, the camera rolled its grey film for the watching eyes below.  
  
B:  
  
Buffy sucked at the straw thirstily.  
  
"I'm starving," she said. "Does fighting get you hungry too?" Riley shrugged, silent, preoccupied. Buffy pushed her drink away. "Okay. Talk. You have that sort of face on."  
  
"What sort of face?"  
  
"The sort that means you want to say something. I've had experience."  
  
"With Angel?"  
  
Buffy's eyes flared for a moment.  
  
"So it's Angel that's the problem?"  
  
"I took your advice," Riley said, staring into the bubbly depths of his soda. "I talked to them."  
  
"And?"  
  
"This green demon and a vampire told me about Angelus."  
  
There was silence. Buffy drank another sip of her drink.  
  
"Angel's not Angelus," she said eventually. "I mean, it's the same body, but that's all. Believe me. I know."  
  
"You said he was human. There was all that business with my crucifix …"  
  
Buffy smiled, a small, gentle smile. "He is human," she said, a touch of happiness in her voice.  
  
"But how can he be …"  
  
"You're not going to let this be, are you?" Buffy asked, realising that Riley was confused and disturbed. He worried her. "Okay, it's a long story – I mean, any story that's 250 years old is kinda long. These are just like the basics." She sketched them out for Riley. "And so he's human and he's staying that way." She slurped her milkshake. "Mmmm. Riley, it's not like I'm going to forget what he was, or what Angelus did. He hurt us. All of us. But sometimes you have to put that behind you." Buffy pushed away her cup and leaned her elbow on the table. "I realised," she said, serious, "that when I saw him walking across the grass in the sunlight that I was happy. For the first time since I was called I was really happy. Maybe it's corny. Maybe it's mushy and stupid, but you know, I think we were made for each other. I love him. I always have, and I hope I always will."  
  
Riley watched her, her eyes shining with an inner light, and something inside him broke apart. "And me?" he asked, croakily. "What about me?"  
  
"I hope we can still be friends." She fell back on the clichéd excuse.  
  
He stared at her for a moment longer, and then got up hurriedly and turned, walking off briskly. At the entrance to the shop he looked back at her.  
  
"I know you don't need someone to walk you home." And then he was gone, head down, the camouflage uniform blending into the night. Buffy listened to his footsteps and got up to go the other way, wandering slowly back to her dormitory. 


	4. Double Vision

Disclaimer: see chapter 1  
  
DIMENSIONS: chapter 4 – Double vision  
  
  
  
A:  
  
"I HATE these visions!" Cordelia grabbed a doughnut and bit into it. "They stink, they hurt, and they make me hungry. I'm gonna pile on the pounds."  
  
"Rubbish." Wesley Wyndham-Pryce glanced up from his book. "You probably work them off in the stress of the vision. What was it this time?"  
  
Angel put a glass of water on the desk in front of Cordelia and leant against the wall, arms folded, waiting silently. He knew his friend would give him the details in time. Cordelia swallowed a mouthful of pastry, downed half the glass of water, and turned to them.  
  
"Angel, you might want to sit down."  
  
"I'm fine. What was it?"  
  
"It wasn't usual." Cordelia brushed sugar off her hands. "No demons involved. It was weird, actually. I think it was Sunnydale. Probably the campus. Nice weather, the sort that's good for the tan?"  
  
"I wouldn't know."  
  
"That was the odd thing, it looked as if you did."  
  
There was silence in the room, broken by the clock in Angel's office striking the hour.  
  
"There was you and Buffy, and Willow and this girl I didn't recognise – they were holding hands, which was way freaky – wandering along a path. You had a picnic basket."  
  
"Wait. You're sure it was me?" Angel met Cordelia's eyes. "It's important."  
  
"Yeah, it was you or your twin brother." Cordelia paused. "You didn't have a twin brother, did you? That you changed into a vampire and forgot to tell us about?"  
  
"No twin brothers." Angel's tone meant carry on, and Cordelia did so after more doughnut.  
  
"You were wearing a pale blue shirt, and I swear you looked healthy. Not that pale look. Buffy was smiling. You were all smiling. And there was sun in the sky."  
  
Angel turned around and went into his office, closing the door silently but firmly behind him. Cordelia and Wesley exchanged looks, and then Cordelia picked up her doughnut.  
  
"He took that well."  
  
Wesley tried to peer through closed blinds and failed. He straightened up and perched on the end of Cordelia's desk, arms folded and a thoughtful expression on his face.  
  
"You really saw that?"  
  
"But yes," Cordelia said. "I mean, Angel human? Not like it hasn't already happened. Could happen again."  
  
Wesley stared, and then, in a strained voice, said, "Sorry?"  
  
"Oh. Well, it happened … when Doyle was still here." Cordelia's eyes flicked to the photo on her desk and back to the Englishman. "Big demon, funny blood …"  
  
"A Mohra, I imagine," Wesley nodded.  
  
"Yeah. Buffy came to visit. Big fight, big demon gets involved, and bing! Angel's human. Apparently. But he got cold feet and asked the Oracles to turn him back."  
  
"What?!"  
  
"Stupid, I know. They turned back the whole day. We did things we never did and we won't remember 'cause it never happened. Y'know, I might have got a star part in something that day … Doyle might have …"  
  
It was clear from Wesley's face that he was working this out and translating it into English.  
  
"So, Angel was human, for a day?" She nodded. "My, my." He reflected a little longer. "Have you ever heard of alternate dimensions, Cordelia?" Cordelia drank coffee and shook her head. Wesley slipped off the edge of the table and went to a pile of books in the corner. "There is a theory, possibly completely wrong, of course, that as well as our world, there exists several others. Maybe even several million others. In these dimensions, we exist, we live our lives, but every time we choose one direction, our other selves choose another. Or another path is chosen for us."  
  
"You mean," said Cordelia, "that maybe in another world the Oracles never turned Angel back?"  
  
"I mean just that." Wesley's face was grave.  
  
"Gee," said Cordelia eloquently. "And I might have seen it?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And you reckon Angel knows this?"  
  
"I think he quite possibly does."  
  
There was silence, and both of them looked at the window and the blinds covering it.  
  
"Then we have to do something!" exclaimed Cordelia, jumping up. "A spell. Something. I don't care if another Angel is happy, it's this one I know and … and like, and he should be happy too."  
  
B:  
  
Angel turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door, standing back to let Buffy go in first.  
  
"What do you think?"  
  
She spun around, eyes wide in astonishment. "It's … it's amazing. It's … well, you know, I kind of associated you with black, and dust and stuff."  
  
"I decided to make a new start."  
  
Buffy nodded, and began to inspect the apartment properly. She gasped in all the right places and made oohs of pleasure at the pale green and yellow paintwork, the comfortable blue sofas and armchairs in the sitting room, and the well-equipped, modern kitchen. Angel followed her with a smile on his lips, enjoying her excitement. He was pleased with the apartment. On the topmost floor of a building set in a quiet part of the town, it was spacious and sunny. He had succeeded in placing all his favourite pieces of art and indulged in being modern. The little study-library, with two ceiling-to-floor bookshelves, was equipped with a computer that Willow would love and books that Giles would certainly want to borrow.  
  
"Wow." He followed Buffy out on to the flat balcony where he had put a table and two chairs, facing the sunrise for the mornings. "Angel, it's …"  
  
"Like it?"  
  
"I love it. You're not gonna be able to keep me away." Buffy blushed as she finished, realising a little too late exactly what she had said. Angel moved to put his arms around her and held her close.  
  
"I don't want to keep you away. There's a chest of drawers empty in the bedroom all ready and waiting for you. And mirrors."  
  
She smiled up at him, remembering a conversation they had had once early in the morning in the mansion.  
  
"Drawers? For me?"  
  
"All for you. You can bring whatever you like. The bottom one's lockable for weapons."  
  
"You're perfect." She twisted round to face him properly. "I still keep thinking I'm going to wake up and find it's all a dream."  
  
"It can't be. I never have nice dreams. At least, not until recently." He bent and kissed her. "Buffy … want to come and check out the drawers … now?"  
  
She nodded, and still entwined followed him into the bedroom. The curtains, pale violet this time, were drawn, giving the room a dusky, gentle feel, and the colour was echoed in the deep purple of the bed. Buffy ran her hands over the pine chest of drawers and sniffed in the smell of the new wood.  
  
"Open the top one," Angel said softly. She glanced at him, and opened it, and gasped. Angel picked out the box and held it out to her. "I found this in the mansion, when I cleared out. I kept it. I don't know how it got there, why I hadn't seen it before, but I want you to have it back. To wear it the right way round, if you can. What I said to you that night still stands. I love you, and I always will."  
  
Buffy could not speak, the lump rising in her throat as she gazed at the linked hands and the heart. Angel held his hand out. "You wear it like this," he said, as he had once before, and picked out the claddagh ring. "Will you?"  
  
"Of course." She met his eyes with that sweet, deep look he knew so well, tears of happiness shining in them, and watched as he slipped the silver ring on her finger and kissed it.  
  
"I belong to you," he said.  
  
"We belong to each other," Buffy replied, and lifted her head for a kiss. Angel met her mouth softly at first, and then as the kiss deepened harder, breaking the contact for a short breath of wondrous air before dropping his lips again and at the same time lifting the Slayer in his arms and dropping her on the bed.  
  
Buffy closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of Angel, still so recognisable though the mouth now kissing her neck feverishly was warm. Vaguely, as if in a dream, she felt expert fingers untying her halter neck and slipping the material off her before the kisses started again, running down her body, around her nipples, hands gliding where the mouth was not. She moaned gently as the soft, moist tongue flicked down the centre of her stomach and then fastened on her breasts, sucking, and with her own hands she pulled Angel's shirt up and over his head, feeling his back, the muscles, the warm skin under hers.  
  
He kissed her on the mouth again and then slipped downwards, teeth on the zip of her jeans and hands pulling the material down. Buffy could feel the whole length of the hard male body on hers, the wholly human strength, and gripped in passion she used her own power to tear Angel's trousers off him, throwing them aside and running her hands over his naked buttocks, which glided away from her as he moved down to her legs, still kissing, the mouth and tongue doing all the work, her thighs tingling with the feel. She lay back and let the pleasure overwhelm her, barely registering as he pulled lace knickers from her, but gasping when a darting tongue flicked around her.  
  
"Angel," she whispered, "dear Angel."  
  
He moved up her body again, the brown eyes aflame as they met hers, moving into her and with her, together. And both of them knew that this time pleasure, happiness, perfection could be theirs.  
  
A:  
  
Angel threw open the door and stood in the doorway.  
  
"We're going to Sunnydale."  
  
Cordelia and Wesley looked up from their books, startled.  
  
"Angel, is this …?" began Wesley, hesitantly. The vampire's face was drawn and haggard, the eyes almost feverishly dark against the pale skin.  
  
"It's either the future, or it's a vision from somewhere else," Angel said firmly. "If it's the future, then I want to be there. If it's from another dimension, then it's a spell. And the only person I know capable of performing such a spell is Willow."  
  
"Hence Sunnydale." Wesley closed his book and stood up. "But not right now."  
  
"We leave at sundown. You have one hour and thirty-seven minutes to get ready and get back here." Angel looked at them both for a second and then turned, closing the door behind him. They heard the hum of the lift.  
  
"Time to go home," sighed Cordelia.  
  
B:  
  
Riley closed the door behind him.  
  
The room was full, as usual. For a moment his tired brain wondered whether any of them actually had homes, or if they all lived with the English librarian. Eight pairs of eyes looked back at him, some angry, some sympathetic, some merely clinically interested.  
  
Riley did a double-take and stared back into the interested ones. "I know you!" he exclaimed.  
  
Spike shook his head energetically. "Me? Couldn't possibly. I'm just … a friend of … Rupert's … Xander's …"  
  
"Hostile 17," Riley said, jabbing his finger in Spike's direction. "It escaped."  
  
"Hello!" Spike spread his hands out. "I'm here. You can talk to me, y'know. Bloody humans," he muttered to himself.  
  
"That's just Spike," Buffy said, leaning back into Angel's arms. "He's a … he's safe, anyway. Doesn't bite anymore. Your chip did its job."  
  
"Hey!" Spike exclaimed. "I'm evil, remember? I'm a vampire. Grrr?"  
  
"Shut up, Will," Angel said tiredly. "You're not fooling anyone."  
  
"What do you want, Riley?" asked Buffy.  
  
He sagged against the doorframe. "It's Professor Walsh. She's … she's dead." Willow gasped, and searched blindly for Tara's comforting hand. Buffy cast her eyes downwards. "It happened in the Initiative," Riley continued, for once not caring who heard him. "Stabbed. With a sharp pointed stick. Wooden."  
  
"You're not …"  
  
"It was suggested," said Riley, without moving to defend Buffy.  
  
"I haven't been near her!" said Buffy. "I've been here, and at college, all day. I wouldn't kill Professor Walsh. I don't kill humans."  
  
"It's against the code," Giles commented, offhand.  
  
"A wooden stick," repeated Riley. "You may …"  
  
He stepped back into the door, finding himself faced by someone taller than him, broader than him, and angrier than him. "Buffy would not do such a thing," Angel said, very quietly and menacingly. "Look elsewhere for a culprit. But leave the Slayer out of this." He met Riley's eyes hard for a second, and went back to Buffy. Giles, risen from his seat, nodded.  
  
"Let me add to that, Mr Finn. Even suggesting the Slayer is guilty of murder is … unthinkable. Search amongst your demons for the killer." He stared at Riley with a look very reminiscent of Ripper, and sat down again, replacing his glasses.  
  
"I … I …" stammered Riley. "I'm sorry, Buffy."  
  
"Good." Everyone turned towards the speaker, who shrugged. "Look, it's in my interest to keep up the Slayer's profile, ain't it? Don't want people goin' around saying the two I got rid of weren't worth it. Reputation an' all that?" Spike shook his head. "Hell, if it wasn't so bleedin' sure I'd get my ass kicked – again – I'd be fightin' for whatever it was that topped your prof. But nah, chip deals with that." He scowled and fell silent.  
  
Riley shook his head. "All this time – you've been sheltering an HST, and you never told me?" He made a face of disgust. "You – all of you. You're unnatural. Vampires. Ex-vampires. Slayers. And god knows what else."  
  
"Trust me," muttered Xander, "you really don't want to know."  
  
"We'll look for Professor Walsh's murderer," said Buffy. "If it's human, I'll let you know. If not I'll kill it. I'm sorry, Riley, I really am, but it wasn't me, I swear."  
  
"I believe you. That's all." Riley looked carefully at each of them, shook his head and disappeared. The door slammed behind him.  
  
A:  
  
"There's nobody in," said Wesley, coming back to the car. "It's extremely odd, I never knew Mr Giles …"  
  
"The college," said Angel, turning on the ignition. "Get in, Wes."  
  
Wesley climbed in and exchanged a look with Cordelia. The journey to Sunnydale had been high-speed and tense, none of them speaking very much. Both Cordelia and Wesley were concerned about their friend's obsessive state, but Angel did not seem to notice as he pushed the convertible to its limits on the straight road between Los Angeles and Sunnydale. Once only quick vampiric reactions prevented them from hitting another car, but they reached the small town safely, only to find an empty Watcher's house.  
  
At the dormitory Angel jumped out of the vehicle, followed by his companions, and took the stairs inside Stevenson Hall two at a time. They stood outside the door as he banged it and called Buffy's name, but –  
  
"There's nobody in here either," said Cordelia. "You sure it's the right one?"  
  
Angel leant against the door, almost as if he was trying to break it down. "Yes," he replied emptily. "Buffy, it's me!" he tried again. "Buffy?" He rattled the handle, and then, glancing quickly up and down the corridor, forced the door open with a cracking of the lock.  
  
"Are you sure that's …" started Wesley, and then shut his mouth as he saw Angel's face. The three of them slipped inside the room, Cordelia murmuring a quick invitation for Angel.  
  
It was clearly empty, the beds neatly made with cushions and stuffed animals perched on the head ends.  
  
"Nobody's been here all day," Angel murmured, absently stroking Mr Gordo's back as he sat down on Buffy's bed. "Nobody's here."  
  
Cordelia patted his shoulder comfortingly. "How about Buffy's moms? Or Willow's? Or … or Xander's?"  
  
"Do you know the way to Xander's?" asked Angel, leading the way out of the dormitory.  
  
Cordelia blushed a little. "Of course. We dated, remember?"  
  
Angel started the car up again. "You were always the oddest couple in the group, I think. Even beating Buffy and myself."  
  
"Xander did me good," Cordelia admitted, after a pause. "I thought I was the best, that him and Willow were geeks, but I guess I found out they cared about things."  
  
"Food, in particular," commented Wesley from the passenger seat.  
  
Cordelia gave the directions and after a short drive the black car pulled up outside the small bungalow from which no lights shone.  
  
"Doesn't look hopeful." Cordelia shook her head and climbed out of the car, and they followed her down the path and round the side of the house, going down a short flight of stairs. She banged on the door, and after a pause it opened a crack.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Xander, it's Cordy."  
  
The door opened wider, and Xander's face poked out. "Cordy? What're you doing here?" He peered into the darkness. "Wesley? Deadboy?"  
  
"Don't call me that," said Angel quietly. "Is Buffy there? Can we come in?"  
  
"Can't stop the others," Xander said cheerfully, allowing them to pass. There was a Willow-pitched squeal from inside the room, and a murmur that Angel recognised as Giles. "Yeah, she's here. Want to upset her again? You know, everything's going right for her at the moment. With Riley and everything."  
  
"Xander." Angel's voice was weary. "It's important. You know I wouldn't have come if it wasn't. Let me in. Please."  
  
Xander stared at the vampire for a moment and then stood back. "Come in."  
  
Buffy was sitting on the large pulled-out couch in the crowded room, stroking gently the blond hair of a sleeping boy. Man, Angel corrected himself. A young man, but a man. In camouflage uniform, none the less. She looked up as Angel came in and their eyes met, her hand stilled.  
  
"Angel."  
  
"Buffy." The same enigmatic greeting that had been theirs since the start, but now her voice was filled with suspicion and coolness.  
  
"Angel!" squeaked Willow, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a heavy book on her lap.  
  
"Hey." He nodded at them all, generally. Giles looked away. Angel's eyes turned automatically back to Buffy and the figure asleep on the bed.  
  
"Buffy?" Now the word was a question. She smiled sadly.  
  
"My boyfriend, Angel. Riley. He's sick. We don't know what with …"  
  
"It's not the plague," interjected Anya, lightly. "Or measles, or polio. Could be swamp fever. I gave …"  
  
"Shhhh." Xander gave his girlfriend a look that quietened her.  
  
"And we need to know why he's ill. And we need to kill a demon thing."  
  
"Business as usual on the Hellmouth," said Wesley. "May I help, Mr Giles?"  
  
"For God's sake, man, drop the Mr," Giles said irritably. "Even they call me just Giles." He waved a hand vaguely around the room with his glasses. "Grab a book."  
  
Wesley chose one at random and settled down to read.  
  
"I don't care," Angel said to Buffy. "For once, I don't care. I just need to know – do you remember?"  
  
There was silence in the room, and everyone stopped what they were doing. Buffy looked down at Riley and up again at Angel. "Do I remember what?"  
  
"Do you remember … the day I was human?"  
  
Now the silence was deep and thick, almost as if nobody dared breathe. Buffy stared at the vampire, her eyes large and worried and hurt.  
  
"What?" Her voice was a whisper. "What?"  
  
He told her, the rest of them hanging on to his soft, pained words although they were meant only for the Slayer's ears. Halfway through the account Buffy looked down and wiped her eyes with the back of a hand, running the other through Riley's damp hair.  
  
"Do you remember?" Angel repeated, at the end. "Because Cordelia had a vision. She saw us, together, in the sunlight. I need to know why."  
  
"You did that, and you never told me? They took my memories away?" Buffy stood up, turning away from him. "Something took my memories away from me?"  
  
"I couldn't see you die for me. I couldn't …"  
  
"We had that, and you took it away? It would … my love for you has nothing to do with being the Slayer," Buffy said, softly but urgently.  
  
"Has?"  
  
"You left me, not the other way round. Riley … I don't know what I feel for Riley. He means something. I don't love him like I love you. And you did that?"  
  
She sank down on the bed again and let the tears run, and Willow got up from her seat on the floor and went to put her arm around the Slayer. Angel, his face tense, looked for a second before hastily leaving the room.  
  
B:  
  
Buffy put her arm around Angel's waist.  
  
"Let's forget Adam today, shall we? Go for a picnic? Get Xander and Anya?"  
  
"Xander's selling something," Willow said happily. "Ice-cream, I think."  
  
"Well, then, the four of us. Or perhaps we should get Giles?"  
  
"He'd feel strange," Angel pointed out. "Odd wheel, or something. Trust me. he'd be delighted to be asked but he'd feel he had to accept, and I'm sure he's happier amongst his books."  
  
Tara glanced at Angel quickly. "You're … there's something about Mr G – Giles that m – makes you nervous, isn't there?"  
  
"It's a long unpleasant story," Angel told her. "It's far too nice a day to go into it now. A picnic sounds lovely."  
  
Tara smiled at him, and nodded, and Angel had the brief, uncomfortable feeling she could see into his mind. She squeezed Willow's hand and the two witches shared a glance of understanding.  
  
"I'll explain later," Willow said softly.  
  
They wandered along in the sunshine, chatting and laughing. Buffy, close in Angel's warmth, glanced up at his smiling face and felt a wave of unutterable euphoria come over her. The days of aching pleasure and unbearable pain were over. The days of black too. Today Angel had on a pair of blue jeans and a short-sleeved pale grey shirt which they had chosen together on a shopping trip, and Buffy proudly thought he looked wonderful. 


	5. We are Family

Disclaimer: see chapter 1  
  
DIMENSIONS: chapter 5 – We are Family  
  
  
  
A:  
  
"Buffy's out," said Willow, holding the door open to let him in. "Patrolling. Trying to find Adam with Riley." Angel looked away from her, and the redhead blushed violently. "Colleagues. Professional. You know he's an army guy?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Well, then …" blustered Willow.  
  
"Willow, I know they're together. It's not your fault. It's mine."  
  
She stopped talking and gave him a reassuring little smile before sitting cross-legged on her bed and picking up a book. "I found something. At least, I think I did. It could be dangerous, and it doesn't say if it'll work on vampires. It might not."  
  
"I'll take the risk."  
  
"And it needs to be cast by three people."  
  
"Giles?"  
  
"Giles, and Tara." Willow smiled despite herself at Tara's name. "Tara's a witch, a good one. She'll help, I know she will. And Giles is always a good solid third." She picked up the phone. "I'll call her now."  
  
"You don't have to do that …" began Angel, half-turning from the window.  
  
Willow grinned happily. "We were going to meet up to do spells anyway." She dialled, and spoke briefly into the receiver before putting it down. "There. She'll be here in a few minutes."  
  
Angel sat down carefully on Buffy's bed, stroking the coverlet idly with a hand, and faced Willow who had returned to her book.  
  
"You are being careful, doing this magic, aren't you?"  
  
"Course."  
  
"Last year, Giles was there more or less all the time to watch you. Now you're on your own. Are you sure you know what you're doing?" He looked down at his hands. "I know what started you off, and I'm forever grateful, and the last thing I would want is for you to hurt yourself casting a spell."  
  
Willow looked up from the spell and noting the ingredients with surprise. She tried to remember Angel volunteering so much at once before and failed. "Oh," she said, with realisation. "Oh."  
  
"I don't have many friends, Willow," Angel told her gently. "I count you amongst the ones I do have. I don't want to lose you, or that friendship."  
  
She looked at him with wide hazel eyes and then darted up from the bed and gave him a warm hug. "Me too," Willow said. "I hope this thing goes all right, that you and Buffy can …"  
  
"Riley?" asked Angel, surprised and touched.  
  
"He's nice," nodded Willow keenly. "He's nice, but you know I watched her through the beginning of you two too and it's not the same." She stepped back a bit, and then went hurriedly to her computer and starting moving things around, evidently embarrassed. Angel smiled to himself and watched her bustle.  
  
There was a gentle tap at the door, and Willow started and went to open it.  
  
"Hey." The voice was soft and hesitant, but from his vantage point on Buffy's bed Angel saw Willow's face light up at the sound, and he began to rethink things about the redheaded witch.  
  
"Come in." Willow held the door back and let Tara in before closing it again. Looking up, Angel saw a girl with faded blonde hair and a posture that said "nervous", but felt something in the room that hadn't been there a moment before. Power, pure basic power. Willow had power too, but hers was neatly sealed up inside her, to be released through chanting and emotion and anger. Tara's power was tangible and there, and Angel, with centuries of experience in the field, felt a wave of awe sweep over him.  
  
"Tara," said Willow, "this is Angel."  
  
Tara followed her friend's hand to look properly at Angel. She had known, even before entering the room, that whoever Willow had with her, they were decidedly not human. Now, as he lifted his head to meet her eyes, she saw that there was humanity there, but mixed in with it a demon, and torment, and struggling.  
  
"Oh," she murmured. "Hi."  
  
"Angel's …" started Willow, but Tara shook her head.  
  
"No, I can see. You're a vampire."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"But there's something … else inside you. Something's t - trapped." Her gaze shot to Willow. "And you put it there, Will."  
  
Angel nodded, even more impressed. Tara smiled softly at him, and held out her hand brusquely. "Pleased to meet you."  
  
"And I you." He took her hand, and unconsciously bowed his head. "With you two around this college must have a good Wicca group."  
  
"Daughters of the Goddess, blah blah," Willow said, shaking her head. "Newsletters and tea afternoons but no magic."  
  
"Except for Willow," said Tara.  
  
"Except for Tara," said Willow. "I'm just trying."  
  
"No, except for both of you," corrected Angel. "This room's almost buzzing with …"  
  
Tara took the book Willow offered her and read the spell quickly, listening to her friend's explanation.  
  
"We need lots of stuff," Willow added, "and also we need to know …" she peered over the old words again, "the colour of his aura."  
  
"I – I can do that." Tara took Angel's hand again and closed her eyes, concentrating for a second, and then opened them again with a glance of surprise. "That's … it's … You know somebody's aura's like a rainbow, stripy, almost. Your – yours is green for peace and orange for intelligence with a deep violet streak for passion, Willow," she explained. "It's … unusual, but I've never seen anything like A – Angel's before."  
  
"Well?" asked Willow, impatient.  
  
"There's a strong black background," Tara said, "black as night. That means power and power for evil." Angel turned away quickly. "And there's the orange too, and royal blue which means strength of mind. You have a thin violet stripe, but what stands out, in the foreground, is a narrow but very clear and very unbroken line of pure gold."  
  
"Which means?" said her friend.  
  
"It means Warrior for good," Tara explained, "and pure good too. A core which can't be broken. I think Buffy will probably have that gold too."  
  
"But it can be broken." Angel had turned around again, his voice low. "I suppose that part's the soul. And it can be broken."  
  
"No." Tara was certain. "No, it c – can't be. It's not very old. Perhaps a year or a little more. The rest is ancient. I think you've always had the violet." Angel laughed shortly and without humour.  
  
"Passion."  
  
"And the orange. The black and the blue aren't quite as old, but there's not much in it." She blushed and nodded earnestly. "Wh – which means that for the spell we have to get some elixir of phoenix feather and also a – a – ten grams of ebony."  
  
"Eeek." Willow was investigating her purse. "Phoenix feather …"  
  
"I'll pay. I'm asking for this." Angel took some notes from his pocket. "Just don't tell Cordelia, all right?"  
  
B:  
  
It was night. The cemetery was deserted, save for two figures wandering idly amongst the stones, arms linked. In the clear sky above stars twinkled, and there was the rustle of leaves in the gentle breeze.  
  
Buffy sighed happily. "A perfect day."  
  
"Now, if you start singing …" teased Angel softly.  
  
"You'll what?" asked Buffy, turning her face up to his.  
  
"I'll … I don't know. Tickle you?"  
  
"Not ticklish!" she laughed, spinning away from him. "It's such a perfect day!" she belted out at the top of her voice.  
  
"Oh yeah?" Angel ran after her, dodging gravestones and crosses and finally managing to throw himself on top of her, both of them laughing breathlessly. "Not ticklish?"  
  
"Not a bit," gasped out Buffy. "Ow!"  
  
They rolled in the damp grass, each trying to attack the other, and finally rolled apart and lay staring up at the stars.  
  
"It's such a beautiful night," Angel said softly. "Somehow I appreciate it more now I know the sunshine too."  
  
"Oh please!"  
  
The voice acted like a spring on the Slayer, and she was upright with a stake in her hand before Angel had sat up. There was a click from a cigarette lighter, and a puff of smoke, and Spike wandered out of the shadows. Buffy groaned and put her stake away.  
  
"And I hoped I had a real vamp to dust there."  
  
"Ha very ha." Spike put his head on one side. "Tousled look suits ya, Slayer. Making the most of it, are you?" Angel got to his feet and dusted off his jacket, coming closer to Buffy. Spike strolled forward, cigarette in his mouth. "You too, Angelus?"  
  
"Don't call me that."  
  
"Yeah? What're gonna do?" Spike put out his cigarette and grinned. "No more tyrannising your kids, mate."  
  
"What are you going to do?" replied Angel coldly. "Bite me?"  
  
"Don't tempt me. That'd really be poetic irony, now, wouldn't it? He who staked his sire, fell in love, got sent to Hell," Spike ticked the list off on his fingers, "came back, turned into a bleedin' human; drained to death by his childe who ain't really his childe because you had to give a present to Dru that night, but couldn't trust her to do all the teachin' stuff. And they say the family is dead."  
  
"Mine isn't." Angel shot Buffy a look full of love. "I've a new one."  
  
She returned the look before giving Spike quite a different one. "Go and … I don't know, but go and do it somewhere else. Or I'll dust you."  
  
"I'll believe that when I see it, Slayer," the vampire returned, "but I'm gone anyhow. Guy's gotta eat." He bared his teeth in a macabre grin and turned, melting into the shadows. Buffy sighed.  
  
"Why can't he just leave!"  
  
"Because he's Spike," said Angel. "He's mad at us both because he lost Dru. Although that was his own fault. And he's mad at himself because he helped you bring me back, and because really he doesn't want you dead. I think he's fond of you in his own way."  
  
Buffy absorbed the information with a little frown, and then shrugged. "If you say so. I'll believe anything you say."  
  
"So if I said I was going to turn into a slime demon?" suggested Angel, putting his hands in his pockets as they started to walk again. Buffy hit him lightly.  
  
"Not fair. I'll only believe sensible things." She paused. "I think I might be pregnant."  
  
"Now you're teasing." Angel's eyes filled with regret. "We both know that's impossible."  
  
Buffy stopped walking and sat down on a gravestone. "Either it's impossible or it's not. What do you believe in more, modern science or miracles?"  
  
He shook his head. "I know this is a miracle, that I'm here, with you, but I'm not expecting more. I've been dead two and a half centuries, my love, my line died out when I did."  
  
"I'm three weeks late," Buffy said, staring into the darkness. "I thought that too. I was just too happy … to think of precautions, you know? There wasn't anyone else to precaut against."  
  
"Precaut's not a word."  
  
She laughed. "Now you're being Gilesy. I'm serious, Angel. I haven't been more serious since I got you to feed from me. And I don't want to have to hit you again. I think I'm pregnant, and if I am, you're going to be a dad."  
  
B:  
  
"Lie back and relax," the doctor said gently. "And try not to worry. I'm just going to examine you thoroughly, take some blood samples and a couple of x-rays. Nothing will hurt and it'll be over in half an hour."  
  
"Right." Angel put his head back and closed his eyes. Then he opened them again and regarded the doctor. "Will you talk me through whatever?"  
  
"Of course." The doctor pulled out a stethoscope and pressed it on Angel's chest. "I imagine this is familiar."  
  
"About all that is, really."  
  
"Things have changed, eh?" The doctor moved the stethoscope. "Don't say anything for a moment … okay. Your heartbeat is slightly elevated, but I'll attribute that to stress. Sit up, please." He moved round to Angel's back. "I must say Mr Giles's call was a surprise. This has to be a first for me."  
  
"For everyone, I think." Angel lay back again.  
  
"Indeed." The doctor strapped a velcro band around Angel's wrist and started a machine. "This checks your blood pressure. I need some family history. Did your parents have any medical problems?"  
  
"Not that I know of. My mother may have had asthma; that is, she got out of breath easily, but it was put down to a delicate constitution."  
  
"And your grandparents?"  
  
"Never knew them. My father's parents died when I was a baby, my mother's before my birth. In their sixties. It was quite a good age back then, you know."  
  
The doctor noted his blood pressure and removed the band. "Normal blood pressure. Open your mouth and say ahh."  
  
"Ahhh," said Angel obediently.  
  
"And brothers and sisters? Did you have any?"  
  
"One brother and three sisters. Younger than me. I was the oldest."  
  
"Any medical problems there?"  
  
"No. I don't think so."  
  
The doctor scribbled on his pad. "And did they … outlive you?" He frowned. "That sounds rather odd."  
  
Angel gazed past the doctor at the eye chart on the wall. "What did Giles tell you?" he said.  
  
"Just that you were for many years a vampire and now you're not. Close your right eye."  
  
With one eye closed and a light shining in his other one, Angel frowned.  
  
"He left out the details."  
  
"Medically they're not really necessary."  
  
"Doctor, my siblings and my parents outlived me only by a day, and their deaths were far from natural." He closed his other eye. "I, that is, the vampire, I killed them. I daresay they'd all have lived much longer had I not got there first. I'm the last of my family, apart from the baby, if there is one. That's why I wanted this exam."  
  
The doctor nodded, understandingly, and from a drawer pulled out a needle and a small test tube. "I'm going to take a small sample of your blood, and with your urine sample they'll be tested." He passed Angel a little box. "And at your leisure, when you get home, fill this and bring it in. There's instructions inside." Angel slipped the box in his pocket and nodded. "When we have the results of all the tests we'll call and you can come in again to discuss them. Otherwise I think everything's completely normal. Not too painful?"  
  
"Not too painful," Angel agreed.  
  
A:  
  
The magic shop was cool and dark and quiet, and the proprietor welcomed Willow and Tara warmly, straightening up from a book.  
  
"Good afternoon, girls. Come for ingredients?"  
  
"Lots," said Willow. She passed him the list. "I don't know whether you're going to have everything."  
  
The owner got down jars of odd substances and filled packets and bags and piled them on the counter. "Now … elixir of phoenix feather … I don't have that in stock. Nor the ebony. Ebony's difficult to find, and the other – I'll have to send off for it. Is it urgent?"  
  
"Qu – quite," said Tara.  
  
"And expensive. What are you doing?" He packed the rest into a sack. "Something to do with dimensions?"  
  
Willow took the sack and paid with some of Angel's money. "Something to do with them. How soon can we have the rest?"  
  
"Two days. Maybe. I'll pull some strings for you." He cashed the note and gave her the change. "Have a nice day, girls."  
  
They left with the sack and he got on the telephone.  
  
B:  
  
They sat down opposite the doctor, holding hands. Buffy was relaxed and calm in a summer dress, but underneath his new, faint suntan, Angel was as pale as ever in nervous anticipation of whatever the doctor had to say.  
  
"Well?" said Buffy.  
  
The doctor smiled at them both in a warm way. "Good news, you'll be pleased to hear. The blood tests all came out normal – slightly low liver function, however. Were you ever a drinker?"  
  
"Every night when I was young," grimaced Angel.  
  
"Hmm. Curiously whatever damage you did to yourself then appears to have frozen. Didn't get any worse, but it didn't get any better. Just watch what you drink and it'll clear up in time. Otherwise absolutely fine. Your blood group, though, caused us all a bit of a problem."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Well, I suppose it will have something to do with your diet over the last few years, and particularly whatever you last, erm, ate, before the change happened."  
  
"I've been on supplies from a butcher for the last three years," said Angel. "Pig, mostly. I could have gone to the hospital but I never liked doing that." Buffy squeezed his hand reassuringly.  
  
The doctor made a note. "We did several analyses and finally gave you a fifty-six percent AB group. Have it checked again in a while and perhaps it'll have settled down now your body's working normally again." He glanced down. "Heart, lungs, eyes and everything in perfect order." He smiled warmly at them both. "In fact, everything's in perfect order."  
  
Buffy smiled radiantly. "You mean …?" she asked.  
  
"Congratulations."  
  
Angel took a deep breath and digested the information. "You're sure?"  
  
"Absolutely sure. Have you decided what you want to do about pre-natal care, Miss Summers?"  
  
"I was wondering," Buffy said with her brightest smile, "if you'd let me come here. Because Giles knows you, and because this whole thing's a bit of a miracle. Technically neither of us should be able to have kids."  
  
"I'd be delighted."  
  
"Great!" Buffy shook Angel's shoulder. "You all right, sweetie?"  
  
"I'm just a bit … a bit in shock," he said. "Give me time to absorb the news and I'll be suitably happy." He paused, and then smiled broadly. "I'm going to be a father!"  
  
"We're going to be parents," said Buffy, and then her face fell. "What am I going to say to Mom?" 


	6. A Meeting of Two Halves

Disclaimer: see chapter 1  
  
DIMENSIONS: chapter 6 – A Meeting of Two Halves  
  
  
  
A:  
  
Giles read through the spell again and glanced over the ingredients, nodding.  
  
"You've prepared everything?" he asked the girls, who were sitting together on the sofa.  
  
Tara smiled her half-smile. "I – I think so."  
  
"I'm sure," said Willow. Giles picked up the vial of phoenix feather and shook it gently, wondering why Willow seemed at once much happier and much more confident these days.  
  
"I suggest we don't use all the elixir or the ebony the first time," he said, thoughtfully. "If we hit the wrong dimension we may have to try again. It all centres on Angel visualising where he wants to be strongly enough."  
  
"What's he going to do when he's there?" asked Xander from the armchair, where he was looking on with interest.  
  
"That," said Giles, "is rather up to Angel, I'm afraid."  
  
They began an hour after sunset. When Angel had arrived he had helped Giles and Xander move the furniture out of the way and they rolled the carpet aside. Nobody said very much, and when the floorboards were exposed Willow and Tara began chalking marks on them. Xander gave his friends a hug and Angel a brief smile and disappeared for a rendezvous with Anya, and they were alone.  
  
Giles went round the room and lit candles and switched out the lamps and then started setting the ingredients ready for the small pewter cauldron which Tara had placed carefully at the edge of the circle. In the short hallway a dark shape was pacing.  
  
They settled down at nine o'clock, the marks chalked neatly and clearly, a small fire burning under the cauldron. Tara asked Angel to sit down in the centre of the circle.  
  
"Are you sure you know where you're going?" said Giles, before they started. "Visualise it strongly."  
  
"Anywhere where we're together," Angel replied briefly. He closed his eyes. "Go on."  
  
Tara, Willow and Giles took their allotted ingredients and glanced at each other. Tara nodded, and in a clear, firm voice with no stammer, no stutter, began the chant.  
  
"Goddess of love and of light, hear our request." She cast a handful of thyme into the cauldron and at once a sweet, burnt smell drifted into the air.  
  
"Goddess of time and of care, hear our request." Willow added dried seaweed to the thyme, the thin spiral of smoke turning a musky purple.  
  
"Goddess of knowledge and of truth," chanted Giles, "hear our request." Dark oil was added to the herbs already in the cauldron.  
  
"Grant this our plea," they said together, "that the body and soul of this man may be given safe passage out of this world and into that of his wishes, that he may find what he seeks and return to his place in security. Grant this our plea." Carefully Tara added the thin liquid of the elixir of phoenix feather, and scattered ebony gratings over the whole. The room was filled with the deep, heavy scent of the mixture, and almost as if drawn by a force, Angel's body fell gently to the ground where he lay, unmoving.  
  
"Goddess of all, grant our request!" the three chanted in unison. There was a blinding flash from the cauldron, which fell over, the fire out; and when they opened their eyes again, Angel was gone.  
  
B:  
  
"I'm tired," Angel said softly into Buffy's ear. "Do you mind if I go home? You stay here with Willow and the others. I've got a stake and it's only a short way."  
  
Buffy frowned and then pouted in mock-misery, though her eyes were shining with the happiness of the night.  
  
"All right," she said, eventually. "But I'm calling as soon as I get back to the dorm and if you're not in …"  
  
"I'll be fine," Angel reassured her, giving her a soft kiss. "And you look after yourself, my darling. There's two of you now."  
  
She smiled, and he got up and said goodbye to the others, and putting his hands in his pockets strolled out.  
  
Outside the Bronze the night was cool and calm. Small groups of people wandered to and fro around the club, couples with their arms around each other, friends laughing. Angel grinned to himself and rounded the corner, part of him watchful, part of him relaxed and happy.  
  
He noticed the lonely figure before the figure noticed him, something flicking the switch of recognition in his mind. Angel stopped and watched the shadow in the corner, and then, as the other stepped hesitantly out into the yellow light from the streetlamp, his mouth dropped open and he froze.  
  
He knew that face. It was still new to him, and there was still a little moment of surprise every time he looked in the mirror, but he knew it because it was his. And the clothes, he knew them too. Angel glanced down at his coat. The same old leather one.  
  
For several minutes he did not move, but stood and studied his double. A rare chance, to see how you yourself move and stand, he thought – but there was something not quite right about the other Angel. A certain sag to the shoulders, a certain pallor to the face in the streetlight. A certain … motionless quality.  
  
His mind burning with curiosity, Angel took a step towards the other, towards his double, and then froze again as an even more familiar figure melted out of the darkness and halted, a cigarette between his lips, next to the first one. Angel strained his ears to listen.  
  
"Somethin' got your tongue, at last?" Spike said mockingly.  
  
Angel stared at him, his mind working double-speed to work out why Spike was in Sunnydale again, what had brought his grandchilde to the Hellmouth – without Drusilla, apparently.  
  
"No," he managed. "Have you … have you seen Buffy?"  
  
"Thought you two were Bronzin' tonight," Spike said, puffing on his cigarette. "Forgotten? Getting tired of her already?"  
  
"Never," said Angel, meaning it. "Never. Spike, I …"  
  
But Spike was staring at him, as if something had just occurred to him, and he cocked his head on one side.  
  
"You're dead," he pointed out. "You're a bleedin' … was it the Gem of bloody Amara all this time? How'd you fool 'em all? I thought you'd smashed it."  
  
"I did smash it," Angel explained, "I … it's a …"  
  
Spike laughed. "Slayer'll be pleased when she hears about this one, sure enough!" he said, still laughing. "And I can tell you, mate, she'll – "  
  
He broke off, and turned around, and then looked back at Angel standing under the streetlight, and then back to the Angel who had just come up behind them both.  
  
"Fuckin' hell!" Spike swore.  
  
Angel, his heart beating a little faster in his chest, gazed at his double. But his double was not looking at him, instead staring at Spike.  
  
"What the hell?" Spike said, looking frantically between the two Angels. "Some spell of Red's? Jesus Christ, Angelus. I hate this town."  
  
"Don't call me that!" Angel told him angrily. "He's gone, gone for good."  
  
His double had gone an even whiter shade of pale, if at all possible, and with burning dark eyes was staring at him.  
  
"Don't call you that?" he whispered. "But that was my name."  
  
"It was our name," Angel replied. He turned to Spike. "Spike …"  
  
"Yeah, I know, you want me to get lost. Fine." The blond vampire started to walk away, shaking his head. "Bleedin' Hellmouth."  
  
Angel turned back to his double who still appeared to be frozen.  
  
"Is this what I look like?" he said. "Is this me? Are you me?"  
  
"I think so," Angel answered. "I think so. But I can't think why you're here."  
  
His double looked down at his hands in a gesture that was achingly familiar to Angel, though he realised he scarcely ever did it anymore. "Cordelia had a vision," he began.  
  
They sat side by side on a bench, both unconsciously fiddling with the claddagh ring on their ring fingers, and Angel, his breath clouding in the cold air, looked again at his double.  
  
"It was when we ran in with the Mohra," he said, shrugging. "Remember?"  
  
"All too well."  
  
"I went to the Oracles. But they refused to turn me back, they refused to do anything. I couldn't do a thing." He paused. "I didn't want to do a thing. I've moved here. I've got a new house, with windows. Buffy and I … we go on picnics." He smiled to himself. "And she's pregnant."  
  
The other Angel closed his eyes. "So you're happy?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Good." The vampire tried to smile. "Good. I'm glad."  
  
"You're not."  
  
"No, I am, really."  
  
"Angel …" Angel paused. "That sounds weird. Angel, you're talking to yourself, you fool. From what you said, you're me, only from another world where our lives took a slightly different path a few weeks ago. Only a few weeks."  
  
"Weeks in the sunshine," the vampire Angel said bitterly. "Weeks with Buffy. Weeks I can't have."  
  
"If it's any comfort, there are … things I miss."  
  
Angel raised his eyebrows at his human other, listening to the heartbeat next to him with envy. "You have that, and you miss things about this? This wretched existence?"  
  
"I can't fight," his double said. "I've got bruises all over from bumping into things and they won't go away. I get tired and hungry, I can't keep up with Buffy when she runs. I'd give … not anything, but something, to have back even a little of that speed and strength. And I still remember."  
  
"Such a burden," Angel threw back, with a flash of old sarcasm. "My heart bleeds for you."  
  
"I'm not trying to say," the human Angel said, "that I'm not overjoyed at it all. I'm just trying to explain what it feels like. That day, that first day, that was perfection."  
  
"It was."  
  
"Hold that memory. It'll keep you strong."  
  
"And Buffy?" Angel's voice was soft, a murmur.  
  
Angel smiled to himself in the darkness, and sighed a sigh of perfect bliss. "She's happy too." They fell quiet, each busy with his own thoughts. "Why was it Cordelia that had the vision?" he asked the vampire, after a while. "Why not Doyle?"  
  
"Has that changed too?" The other Angel's face was blank and emotionless, only the eyes showing something. "Doyle … Doyle died, in my world, he sacrificed himself. Gave Cordy the visions as a parting gift, poor girl. For an while it was tough, but we have Wesley to help now."  
  
"The Watcher?"  
  
"Rogue demon slayer, apparently." Angel smiled briefly. "He's a help. A great help. I'd miss them both if they weren't there."  
  
"There you go!" said Angel, nodding. "There's something you have that I don't. I … I was beginning to enjoy having Cordelia around, and Doyle too, but I hadn't got to the stage of thinking I'd miss them." He shrugged. "Actually, I do miss them, but I know I can call whenever I want to."  
  
They stopped talking again. Somewhere near the campus a clock struck ten. Angel jumped up at the sound, glancing at his own watch as he did so.  
  
"I have to get home. Buffy said she'd call. She'll be furious if I'm not in, and worried, and I can't have her running around looking for me, not now."  
  
The vampire Angel looked up. "She'll be fine."  
  
"She's pregnant! A Slayer's never been pregnant before!" Angel calmed down a little. "Sorry. I worry. I know being pregnant's not such a big deal these days, but I worry."  
  
"She'll be fine," his double repeated, calmly. "I'm more concerned about you – about me – about us. Whatever. Look behind you."  
  
Angel spun around and froze.  
  
"It's the Slayer's boyfriend!" laughed the bulky male vampire at the front of the little group of three. "With that lovely heartbeat. Waiting to be stopped."  
  
"I'm waiting for her," Angel said, gripping the stake in his pocket and wondering how much damage he could do with it. Out of the corner of his eye he could no longer see his double. "You'd be best going."  
  
"I like them when they talk big," the girl murmured, and laughed. "More fun."  
  
"It's not, really," Angel returned, sizing her up. In some ways, he decided, she reminded him of Drusilla. "It's more fun when they scream and kick."  
  
The third vampire raised a pair of bristly eyebrows. "Wisdom from the ex- Scourge of Europe. It so is time someone just ate you!" His eyes widened under the eyebrows and he said, surprised, "what the?" before bursting into dust and disappearing.  
  
Angel nodded, grateful, at his double and launched a quick surprise attack at the girl who had no time to react before she too exploded. The other Angel made short work of the remaining vampire, and the group was gone.  
  
Angel turned to check the surrounding area, his breath coming short and fast. Beside him his other self was idly brushing dust off the leather jacket, but otherwise seemed fine.  
  
"Thank you," Angel said, meaning it. "Perhaps it's silly thanking yourself, but thank you."  
  
"I couldn't see you die," his double said. "I wanted to come here to find out whether Cordelia had seen clearly, whether you were human and with Buffy. I don't know what I thought it'd bring me. Part of me is furious it's you, I mean you in this dimension, who has the happiness. Part of me …" He smiled, properly this time, "part of me is glad I get what I wanted somewhere. Maybe it'll even make it easier to cope back home."  
  
"Remember I know how tough it is," Angel replied, seriously.  
  
"I know. I know. We know."  
  
"We do."  
  
Angel nodded in return and examined his human counterpart closely, even as he himself was being examined. With the initial shock gone he was able to see the differences; the brighter clothes, a more constant and broader smile, a positive outlook on life – and there, he thought wryly to himself, was the biggest difference of all. Life. Air and blood moving in one body and not in the other, simply because in one dimension the Oracles had said "yes," whereas in another they had said "no."  
  
"Look after her," he said softly, meeting the other Angel's eyes. "She deserves happiness."  
  
"So do we," remarked Angel. "One day maybe your chance'll come. Look after yourself. And your Cordelia. It's been … interesting."  
  
"Pleasanter than when Willow's double came to visit," the vampire Angel agreed. "Much pleasanter. You'd better get home, Buffy will be worrying."  
  
Angel nodded and turned around, and walked to the edge of the grass. When he glanced backwards his double was still there, and he raised a hand in salutation before hurrying off towards home.  
  
A:  
  
Tara, dozing in an armchair, woke with a start.  
  
"Will!" she cried out, standing up, blankets falling to the floor. "Willow!"  
  
Willow's nose peeped out of her blankets. "Am I late for the ceremony?" she asked, and then more of her emerged and she sat up. "Tara. What's the matter?"  
  
"I think he's on his way back. Can't you feel it?"  
  
Willow shook off her blankets and went to her friend, taking her hand, and she nodded. "I can feel it. Can we do anything?"  
  
"No. We wait."  
  
Hand in hand, they waited, feeling a tremor under their feet growing louder and stronger. And then, another blinding, roaring flash that threw both girls to their knees, Tara muttering a protection spell desperately under her breath. Giles appeared at the top of his stairs, putting on his glasses and shouting over the noise.  
  
Silence fell. The glasses in the kitchen stopped rattling. Giles got down the last few steps and joined the girls, who were staring at the motionless figure on the floor. Nobody dared move. Tara swallowed. And finally, the figure rolled over and sat up, rubbing his eyes.  
  
"Oh, Angel!" exclaimed Willow, and ran to help him up.  
  
Giles took off his glasses again. Willow sat Angel down and perched next to him on the arm of the sofa, Tara hovering nearby.  
  
"Well?" the redhead asked.  
  
Angel nodded. "I got there. The spell worked."  
  
"And?" questioned Giles, obviously full of academic interest.  
  
Angel told them, his words even and unemotional, with the three others hanging on to every sentence. Giles had found a pen a minute into the recital and was noting things down in a little diary.  
  
"And did you see Buffy?" said Willow, at the end, eagerly. "I mean, his Buffy, that world's Buffy …"  
  
"No." Angel shrugged. "I don't know what I'd have said to her. She has me. We're together there. There, she's … she's pregnant." Willow squeaked and grabbed Tara's hand, a big grin on her face. Giles stood up and started looking through books, absorbed in research. "But that's there. Here, she's in love with that … that Riley person, and I have work to do. Tara."  
  
"Y … yes?" stammered Tara, shocked at being addressed.  
  
"Tara, my aura. Describe that line of gold again."  
  
"It – it's thin, but strong," the witch said. "Very very pure gold. Unbroken and unbreakable."  
  
"Unbreakable. That's the important part. Are you sure, quite sure?"  
  
"Positive. It's not been there very long."  
  
Giles put down his book and looked very intently at Tara. "Tara, would this line be Angel's soul?"  
  
Tara shrugged nervously. "I – don't – it could be. Probably." Willow squealed a noise of pure joy and threw her arms around Angel, who patted her awkwardly on the back before relaxing and returning the hug. Giles smiled, watching them, and Tara blushed a bright red and then shyly joined the pair.  
  
B:  
  
"More ice-cream, sweetheart?" Angel perched on the edge of the bed and displayed the carton. "Cookie dough etc. Your favourite."  
  
Buffy smiled happily and opened her mouth for the spoon. "I think I'll be pregnant more often if I get to be fed ice-cream by you all the time." Angel absently ate some himself, and Buffy squeaked in annoyance.  
  
"Sorry." He spooned more into her mouth.  
  
"Forgiven," she said through cookie dough. "So, what are we going to call her?" She held out a hand for the carton.  
  
"You seem so sure the baby's a she," Angel returned, running a thoughtful finger down Buffy's duvet-covered leg.  
  
"Hello, I'm the Slayer?" she reminded him. "We're a female-orientated species."  
  
"Theoretically there's a fifty-fifty chance of a boy," Angel said.  
  
"Do you mind?" Buffy asked, putting down the spoon and turning her attention to him. Angel shrugged.  
  
"No." He shook his head. "No, of course not. It's a baby, one I thought I'd never had. But I suppose there's a part of me still stuck in the eighteenth century, where boys were profitable, and girls … weren't. Sorry. I want to be a better father than mine was. I think we should call her Amazing."  
  
Buffy hit him with a well-aimed pillow. "This is serious. I'd like to call her Joyce Willow Cordelia Anya Tara, but it's not very good."  
  
"How about Kathleen?" Angel found himself suggesting, though he was not sure where the thought had come from. "Kathleen Jennifer."  
  
Buffy smiled. "That's pretty. But why?" She pleated the duvet cover. "I mean, Jennifer I get, but not Kathleen."  
  
"Kathleen was my sister's name." Angel looked down at his hands and then remembered he was trying not to, and looked up to meet Buffy's eyes. "My oldest sister. She was the sweetest girl, devout and pretty. She always defended me against my father and told me off in private." He blinked away a tear. "She let me into the house that first night. She was my first kill. She said she thought I was an angel."  
  
"So the name," Buffy realised. She held out her arms to Angel and he moved to settle into them, leaning his head against her stomach. "I think it's a lovely name. And if it's a boy? Any family suggestions? I'm not calling him Hank."  
  
"Giles?" proposed Angel. "As a first name it's fine."  
  
"What were you called?" Buffy peered lopsidedly down at him.  
  
"Liam."  
  
"Liam what? You know, my kid has to have a second name too."  
  
"What's wrong with Summers?" asked Angel, listening to the baby move gently. "That's incredible."  
  
"Summers? No, it's – oh, the baby. I want to be traditional." Her face grew serious. "Besides, all things taken, you have a better chance of survival than me, and then it should have your second name. Plus, if you ever want a job or anything, you're kind of going to need one. Just Angel's fine for a vamp, but not for a person."  
  
"It's ironical, really," Angel said, sitting up. "I was Liam Riley. I'm afraid you seem to have exchanged one Riley for another."  
  
"I prefer this one. Liam Giles Riley? Giles Liam Riley? Liam Giles." She sighed happily. "There."  
  
A:  
  
"There you are!" said Cordelia. "There's cheques to sign."  
  
Angel took the pen and the cheque book and signed them, and Cordelia took the book back. "That's the first time you've not complained. What happened?"  
  
"I met me," said Angel. "In the other dimension the Oracles didn't turn me back. I'm human, and with Buffy." He smiled. "But I have good news here, too. You can throw away whatever anti-Angelus equipment you have in that drawer, Cordy."  
  
Wesley looked up and took notice of the conversation. "What did you say?"  
  
"I didn't, but – apparently my soul's permanent. Nothing can take it away from me again. I'm still a vampire, but I can be happy."  
  
Cordelia smiled broadly and happily, and got up from her chair to hug her employer. "And Buffy?" she asked.  
  
Angel opened the door to his office. "I'll wait. She's happy, she's with someone, but I can wait. I have forever." He nodded at them both and closed the door behind him.  
  
"Cappucino?" suggested Wesley.  
  
"Absolutely." Cordelia gathered up her coat and they went out. "I wonder if we should tell him about that demon club we found …" 


	7. Epilogue

Disclaimer: see chapter 1  
  
DIMENSIONS: Epilogue  
  
B:  
  
Little Liam Riley gurgled happily on the picnic rug, his legs and arms waving in the air.  
  
"He's perfect," Joyce Summers said, tickling her grandson's tummy. "Utterly perfect."  
  
"One hundred per cent human," Buffy said proudly.  
  
"Not quite," Giles reminded her. "Remember you yourself …" he trailed off, catching a sight of Liam's smile beaming up at him. "He is, indeed, perfect," he agreed. "And I'm very flattered you chose me as his godfather."  
  
"Not the only godfather." Xander plopped down with a box and grinned. "Hey, Lee."  
  
"Liam," corrected Buffy with mock annoyance. "Who has to have the most godparents in the world."  
  
"We couldn't leave anyone out," said Angel, scooping his son up and swinging him round gently before kissing him. "And I have even more good news. It's taken a while and a few white lies, but I've managed to get hold of the little that was left of the family fortune." He gave Liam to Buffy and produced a lengthy document. "It helped I've used the same lawyers for the last two centuries. But apparently when … well, when I died, my father never got a chance to change his will. When he died, the house and the land was placed under the Crown, and eventually sold. But it's empty, has been for twenty years, and they've got it back for me. I don't know what I'll do with it. We could sell it, or keep it as a holiday home." He passed the document to Giles. "It's watertight. And it has a heir."  
  
"The first family to be refounded after two and a half centuries," said Giles. He lifted his glass of champagne. "I propose a toast. To Liam Riley, the old and the new, and to the new mother, and to those that are gone."  
  
They all stood, and above the group the sun shone down, glinting on the baby's fair locks.  
  
"To the future," said Angel; and they drank. 


End file.
